We have all seen a blog post with an interesting video or a link to a news story that comes through by a third party. You know, the person who writes something up and includes additional content that they feel may interest you.
Sometimes it is as simple as if I added a YouTube video in this post and you liked it, so you share it with your friends with the YouTube link instead of sharing it in the format and with the comments I was trying to share.
Sure, you can say that you are passing along the message of just what you wanted to pass along, and sometimes that is fine. However, when you do that, there is sometimes a value added purpose for the format in which you received it that is missed. Sometimes it is because the author of the blog, Digg account, or FriendFeed wanted to start a dialog with you. Maybe they really wanted your comments. Maybe they earn their living based on the content that they provided, and not just the third-party link you passed along. The matter of advertising is not the case for me, because I have not sold links on my Websites since the mid-1990’s. However, advertising is a pretty common practice on websites, and one that really does not hurt most people. When the traffic is stolen, it really does matter to the operator of the site.
When I see this sort of “stealing” as I call it, I am not pointing fingers at you. I am simply saying that a little bit of consideration for why and how you received the interesting tidbit is often in order. For those people who do earn their living by the traffic their Website receives, do not think for a moment that they are not fully aware that you have done this. The Internet is a highly trackable place, and the professionals know that you have retweeted, Facebooked, blogged, or otherwise passed their hard work along and cut them out of the equation. Count on it! Oh, and by the way, Twitter even addresses this in their Terms of Service. They will suspend your account for retweeting without attribution to the author of a message.
This just came to me as I considered the blog post I wrote tonight on the blog for my latest book, “Living in the Storm” where I included a video of “We Are the World” by USA for Africa. I saw that the video was getting a sudden spike in plays after I wrote the blog. I looked, and sure enough, people who read my work had passed it along without any consideration for the thoughts and words in my post. I should not need to mention that as an author, I found it troubling because I have worked very hard and I deserve every bit of attention I have produced for my book.
The question this begs is in how can it possibly hurt to pass along content in the context with which it was presented? Just think of it as just a little piece of respect for the author. Authors and content providers often work very hard and deserve it.
I know I am not the only guy who feels this way, so speak up and give me your comments here on the blog.
If you just must pass along something without any attribution or guilt, here you go: Take Rick Astly with you. 😉
