[thelist] Web Development Sites

[Ben Henick]

On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Madhu Menon wrote:

> Hmmm... what's with the unbelievably strict "all rights belong to us"
> policy, Ben? For a non-paying site, that's certainly a bit unusual. For
> example, at evolt, writers own all rights to their articles and evolt only
> asks for non-exclusive rights to publish the article. And we get a fair bit
> of traffic too.

Nick and I have gone rounds about this, and to put it bluntly, we
disagree.

His explanation is that he wants to keep the traffic coming in; I tell him
that maaaaaybe he's getting carried away with that concern, and the
traffic will take care of itself as long as we do our jobs properly.

He points out that some people aren't terribly scrupulous about giving
credit when they re-publish an article; I respond by pointing out that
"hey, this is the Web."

Nick tells me that in his experience, the harsh language is the best tool
he's got for getting people to play nice.  Even though you are not the
first person to point out to me that this policy is discouraging; I've
have a few people suggest that they won't write for the site until Nick
changes the rights language, at the very least to something more like what
Zeldman's got for A List Apart.

The bottom line:  when the day winds down and the lights go out,
digital-web.com is Nick's site, the operating costs of which get paid out
of his (entirely ordinary) pocket.  He can do what he wants - even if many
would consider some of his decisions to be of less-than-optimal quality.

Nick is in fact a tremendously kind and generous person, but like all of
us, he's got his quirks.  One of them is reflected in the content rights
language.

...Which reminds me, I need to attack those guidelines again, if for no
other reason than to fix the typos.


-- 
Ben Henick
Web Author At-Large              Managing Editor
http://www.io.com/persist1/      http://www.digital-web.com/
persist1 at io.com                  bmh at digital-web.com
--
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?"
"I think so, Brain, but... (snort) no, no, it's too stupid."
"We will disguise ourselves as a cow."
"Oh!" (giggles) "That was it exactly!"