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At 9:55 PM -0500 3/13/04, Bob Wyman wrote:
> Virtually every blog entry that talked about MyStack.com was a
>simple cut and paste from the text that I wrote in an email I sent to
>RSS-DEV, the announcement on the PubSub.com weblog, or the front page
>of MyStack.com. And, in no case was any of the text "attributed" to
>us! The scary thing about this is that people didn't just copy
>sentences that dealt with "fact." They also copied and republished the
>bits where I was emoting a bit (i.e. "That's cool", etc...) But, by
>copying without attribution, those bloggers were essentially taking
>ownership for *my* statements! I only wish that I had said more about
>how wonderful I think the service is... They probably would have
>copied that as well.
Welcome to the wonderful world of PR. Just don't expect that the
print press is any better. Fun game: pick an issue of PC Week or any
similar publication and spot the press releases. The unattributed
republishing of press releases is precisely what PR agencies aim for.
That's why they write their releases like articles instead of like
fact sheets.
In the weblog world so far it's mostly unintentional. Many of the
people who send me announcements aren't capable of writing a brief
paragraph in the third person describing their product, so I couldn't
copy if I wanted to to. Sometimes JSRs and W3C releases are a little
better written so I can grab a chunk of text and wrap it in quote
marks or a blockquote element. Sometimes when I'm reading a web page
I can't even tell who wrote it. I really wish developers would get an
ego, and put their names on their work so I can cite them
appropriately.
--
Elliotte Rusty Harold
elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003)
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA
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