|
Hi Phil,
I'm actually a little ambivalent about this type of bad manners. On the one hand, we all use the web as a resource for information. And on the other hand, there are right and wrong ways to use the information people have so generously published there. Where do you draw the line? Is it making any reference whatsoever to your material? Or in linking directly to your files without your permission? Copying your files? Or using you material in a commercial way? I'm not trying to defend this guy (I think he should have asked you first) but he did disclose that he found the information on the 'net and was reproducing it in his listing. I don't think he really thought about it. His intentions, from his perspective, were probably relatively pure. He just didn't consider YOUR perspective.
I'd caution against modifying the site so that material can't be copied. I've referred to your pages many times; they're a great resource, and it was a great convenience to be able to copy down information for offline reference.
Still, when the line has been crossed it's upsetting. That line may be different for each of us. I'm not sure I'd be too terribly offended if the information I posted was, however backhandedly, honored as an authoritative resource in this way. But I did have an instance a while back where one of those automatically generated websites that seem to exist for no other purpose other than to generate ad revenue linked to one of my images on the NJARC site. Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind, but A) this was, to me, an offensive type of site and B) the reason I even noticed it was they were consuming an appreciable amount of my bandwidth, which was somewhat limited at the time. I try to be a nice guy, but I'm not always completely successful. So I replaced the shot of the swapmeet with this one
Their link to our file was changed several days later and the guys in the club all had a good laugh!
--Dave Sica
|