Re: Weasel

[a2history <a2history@gmail.com>]

Thanks for all the comments on the site-jacking issue.

What bothers me is NOT so much that the content was copied. I've had
the Apple II History, in one form or another, on online services
before the Internet was widely accessible (remember having to use some
sort of a "portal" to leave GEnie, for example, to go out to the wild-
wooly Internet way back when?). My only request when usergroups wanted
to reprint it as an article in their newsletters was to ask that they
snail-mail a copy of the newsletter to me.

So if someone decided to put the CONTENTS of the Apple II History, the
23 chapters and 4 appendices, on their own web site, I would like to
1) be asked, and 2) put it on their own site template. That fits with
the Creative Commons notice I've put on the site - you may copy the
content, but you may not change it or put your own name on it.

In this situation, where the site was completely duplicated (as of
approximately April 2008), that does annoy me. Other than an
experiment in site duplication, I'm not entirely sure WHY this was
done. There is a single advertisement on the copied site that was not
on the original; I have no idea whether or not the copied site is
getting enough traffic to make it worth his while to have done this
(can't expect he's earning much on it).

However, to support the hosting fees and domain name fees, I _have_
put some Google Adsense ads on the site in the past year, and yes,
this phony site could conceivably siphon viewers away from my site.
Moreover, the e-mail link on the copied site does not appear to work
(gee, I wonder why). So if someone has a valid question or comment
they want to make, it will never get to me.

So my personal opinion about this: If you feel that for whatever
reason you want to duplicate the content of the History site on your
own unique site, I would be bothered by it (if I was not asked
permission), but I would be much less bothered than I am by this
blatant duplication.

I'm learning what the process is for asking that it be removed (it's
more complex than just asking the hosting service to do it; I have to
do a whole DMCA submission to them by fax and/or snail mail) and then
they might do something about it. So, we'll see if that works.

-------------------------------------------------------
Steven Weyhrich <IX0YE>--<
Great Great Joy! (http://greatgreatjoy.com)
Apple II History (http://apple2history.org)