Friday, August 10, 2007

Just say no to giving free content-- Garnter's virtual yellow flag--NBC "allowing" debate video

If you're like me, you've probably had loads of groups asking you to provide them with free content. Mark Hamilton draws the line on companies that want to use our content, hold all the rights, and not pay us: As someone who creates and publishes on the ‘net, I don’t mind sharing. I’ve allowed a number of bloggers and web publishers — none of them big money-makers — to use my photos. But I’ve freelanced enough and bought enough from freelancers to have a good idea what the legal broilerplate means, and what lines I draw. If you’re making money off my stuff, I want some. And I can’t think of a situation where I would sign away moral rights or rights in perpetuity.


Also cited Casey McKinnon on the issue:What we web video producers need to do is to ground ourselves as small businesses and micro production companies. Like any company, we need a lawyer to look over our contracts to make sure that we retain our rights. Or we could have a lawyer help us to write our own contract to send to the broadcasters as a way of outlining what’s acceptable.

This should go for all those corporations that are now besieging bloggers (like me) to "contribute" our content to their efforts in exchange for "traffic." That's like getting paid in "copies"--nice to have, but not of much value. If my content's that desirable, and you've got significant income coming in, then pay me.

And in other imporant news....

  • It may not be a total red flag, but it's definitely the yellow-caution flag: research firm Garter [Inc.]Urges Caution on Virtual-World Business Reasons run from IT-related security risks (no surprise there), to possible confidentiality problems--like when your employees go AWOL somewhere on Sexy Beach...



  • NBC "allows" bloggers to use debate footage (Ars Technica):The announcement represents a reversal of NBC's previous policy and a victory for the coalition of Internet activists that has been pushing to make the debates more widely available for several months. Saw Lessig argue for this at the PDF a couple of months ago...and, not surprisingly, Fox News is the one hold-out on debate content. Not surprising, giving their use of IntelliTXT ads on aggregated content...
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