You know who you are. Always talking about how content should “free”, “open” and “transparent.” Conversations should be available anywhere, with everyone having equal ability to comment, discuss and feel valued. Anything behind a “walled garden” that can’t be re-mixed, mashed-up and re-purposed should be frowned upon - even ignored. Copyright? Schmopyright- I use the most liberal version of Creative Commons because I want people to join my campfire discussion and anything that limits that can’t be good….right?

Wait a minute - a site called Shyfter is grabbing my feed and allowing people to comment on my post outside my blog? You mean, a discussion I started could actually fizzle on my blog, but take off somewhere else? They can’t do that! My Creative Commons license says they….wait a minute. They give attribution and there aren’t ads around the content so they aren’t using it for commercial purposes. Hey, that’s not fair!

So I guess all the talk about open, free and transparent is great - until someone takes content of yours and uses it to build their site.

You can’t have it both ways, folks. If you really believe in all that open, free and transparent baloney, don’t whine when your content is taken and a discussion about it is had elsewhere.

This post, like everything else on this blog: Copyright © 2008 TNC New Media. All rights reserved. And proud of it.