Earlier this week I was asked by my friend Lisa to do a guest post regarding the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ I monetise this blog and it’s now available to read. While you’re there you should take a look at the rest of the series she’s running this week called “Writers, money and the web.” There’s been some interesting discussion.
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And while we’re on the subject of blogging, something particularly annoying happened to me last week. My blog RSS feed somehow made its way onto a ‘free post’ aggregator service without my permission. I only found out because I got clickovers from a certain commercial site which uses this service. Basically, this act was in breach of copyright, and to give props to this commercial site they immediately removed my feed with the deepest of apologies.
But that’s not what’s nagging at me and I wish I could adequately describe my feelings as I sit here typing this. My fingers are trembling, and I’m making lots of silly spelling mistakes.
I’ve long been an advocate of the benefits of blogging, for both personal and professional reasons, but I’m not blind to the downsides of it either. My content has been scraped before, but always by spammers, and I’ve just…let it go. But this case was different and I did jump up and down and say, “No. Stop it.”
And honestly? It’s made me tired.
Should we have to be so vigilant? Perhaps not, but that’s the way online life often demands us to be. And it is at those times when part of me can appreciate those writers and artists still out there, hoarding their work, secreting away from the rest of us their creative gems from the fear of this very thing happening. I do understand. On the other hand their reluctance to create an online life or profile ultimately may come at the expense of the successes they may have enjoyed if they’d gone down that path.
But, if nothing else, I will go on. If anything, let this be a cautionary tale.
Protect your work. Because who else will?
