Sunday, March 14, 2004
Free Internet :: Making an honest living
I've been thinking about Steve's ongoing dis-ease about the freedom of Internet publication. (Most recently here & here & here with an "Open Letter to Steve")
I like and admire Steve. But concerning the Open Letter to Mel, he does seem to have responded niavely. If I did not know him well I'd have said disengenuously [if I could spell it].
Steve published the piece, for all the world to see, under a Creative Commons Licence. The particular licence he chose is precisely designed so that users "are free:
* to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work"
and even:
"* to make derivative works".
Creative Commons embodies the spirit of the "Old Internet". Free-for-all to encourage creativity, generosity and the general good.
Of course the Old Internet is dead, once Warner Brothers and the big battalions got into the act (and after many lost their pants in the DotCom bubble), it's settled down as a place where pornmongers and Big Entertainment can thrive, alongside sellers of largescale business information.
What Steve and many others really need is some way to make an honest buck out of our writing. Micro-payments would allow this, but though the technology is ripe they have never "caught on".
Question: How often over the last few years has web-guru Jakob Neilsen proclaimed the year of the micro-payment?
Well over a year ago, The Parish Pump blogged at length on the subject...
Till the year of the micro-payment, you can have controled access by a few and payment - print.
Or free access and loads of comment and interaction with your readers - but no cash - online.
But we can not have both.... ¶ 7:13 AM
[to Del.icio.us]
I've been thinking about Steve's ongoing dis-ease about the freedom of Internet publication. (Most recently here & here & here with an "Open Letter to Steve")
I like and admire Steve. But concerning the Open Letter to Mel, he does seem to have responded niavely. If I did not know him well I'd have said disengenuously [if I could spell it].
Steve published the piece, for all the world to see, under a Creative Commons Licence. The particular licence he chose is precisely designed so that users "are free:
* to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work"
and even:
"* to make derivative works".
Creative Commons embodies the spirit of the "Old Internet". Free-for-all to encourage creativity, generosity and the general good.
Of course the Old Internet is dead, once Warner Brothers and the big battalions got into the act (and after many lost their pants in the DotCom bubble), it's settled down as a place where pornmongers and Big Entertainment can thrive, alongside sellers of largescale business information.
What Steve and many others really need is some way to make an honest buck out of our writing. Micro-payments would allow this, but though the technology is ripe they have never "caught on".
Question: How often over the last few years has web-guru Jakob Neilsen proclaimed the year of the micro-payment?
Well over a year ago, The Parish Pump blogged at length on the subject...
Till the year of the micro-payment, you can have controled access by a few and payment - print.
Or free access and loads of comment and interaction with your readers - but no cash - online.
But we can not have both.... ¶ 7:13 AM
[to Del.icio.us]
