20
June
2008
|
08:08 AM
America/Los_Angeles

A Proposal and a Response to AP - Quote Me Freely and Carry my Adtribution Link . . .

Associated Press caused a blogostorm when it instituted a "fair use" policy that was anything but fair. I disagree with that policy but I do understand the frustration of being a media professional/blogger and recovering some of the value of my work. Most bloggers have a day job but I don't and it is tough to make a living doing what I love to do.

I spend a lot of time out and about, interviewing people, going to events, and writing. It is expensive living in San Francisco and carrying the expenses of travel and publishing. My sponsors are able to support part of my work but it doesn't cover all my costs, it would be great to recover some of the value of my work.

I'm always happy when others quote my work and I have no AP-like restrictions on how much you can quote. In fact, I allow full text commercial use of my work as long as all the links are kept intact and attribution is given. If you can make money with my work then go ahead.

However, if you do find my work useful and want to quote it, it would be great if you could carry one of my text ad links. That way if my work gets wide distribution some of that value might come back to me and/or my sponsors.

More and more blogs are now professional media companies, such as GigaOM, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, All Things D, And I know there are many other professional bloggers out there that would love to share in the value that their work produces.

If they produce breaking news etc, and are widely quoted, wouldn't it be great to support their work by also giving something back? Especially if you could support that work without it costing you anything.

For example, if you quote from this post, maybe you could also carry this text- ad link next to it which has my Amazon ID embedded in it: Order the amazing Amazon Kindle Electronic Book Reader - find out why people are raving about it.

Maybe this type of link could be called a supporting link, or an adtribution link?

You don't have to carry the adtribution link but it would be seen as respectful if you did, and it would help to support the media source. Maybe if AP adopted such a system it might not seem to be so mean and ridiculous.

What do you think?

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