On some occasions, I’ll post an image in its original size, which takes a while to download, then, when enlarged to that real size, is nearly useless. Much better as a thumbnail. Or, as reduced footprint image.
The smaller image size isn’t really suitable for printing, at least, not in a fine art sense.
There’s a balance point between size of the file, and the amount of detail. For practical purposes, as I’ve tested this across machines and operating systems, I’ve found that I prefer what amounts to a three-by-five size. Large enough that some of the image’s detail is clear, yet small enough to not choke narrow-band connections.
In all practical situations, what happens when content is let loose on the inter-webs? It’s like, de facto, public domain. While it’s not, anything with an RSS feed is open to being scraped and repackaged (two ‘scrapers’ on that last link, as examples).
There are two more examples, and that focuses the discussion. One of the feeds for this web journal is here. Gets scraped by my Twitter as well as Facebook. That’s one feed that gets duplicated, scraped and perpetrated throughout the electronic tubes. kramerwetzel.com is weblog fodder, a place for my prose that isn’t strictly horoscopes and isn’t strictly fiction, but certainly experiential and experimental. I own the copyright, but that’s largely hypothetical, as most of what goes on here doesn’t merit theft. Not a challenge, just too hard to market.
The final example of scraping a feed from atrofish.net, the horoscopes themselves. They are available in an RSS feed – the footnote is that it’s for paid subscribers only. While I always intended for everything to be open and available, after the “due date,” practically, the horoscopes are in the pay-per-view category these days. Just the mechanics and I like the systemic underpinnings. Works for me. The astrofish.net horoscopes required a little extra step to parse out in an RSS reader.
Therefore, the one feed that can be burned and copied, the content is free to distribute is the kramerwetzel.com RSS feed.
So, who owns the content?
I do. Mine. Copyright law says it’s mine. While I’d like to release it under the “free to distribute with attribution” label, in my experience, in the real world, that doesn’t work.
The converse side of that, the draconian laws that protect me, in theory, what I’ve found is those are equally appalling and difficult to enforce.
What it means, I don’t release anything I’m not willing to see “stolen” and loosed on the eddies and current of the tubes that contains the inter-webs.
I’ve introduced my terms of service as the governing legalese for my various online endeavors. It does reward a careful perusal, at some point. Check out the stuff on BlogSpot, Journal Land, or any of the other “free” blog sites. How much of your own content do you own?
So, who owns the content?
