Open Source Blogging

In my last post “Please Steal My Content” I talked about how I found myself on this journey of open source blogging, letting my creative writing and web content go.

I promised that in my next post, this one, I was going to talk about what I learned about being vigilant about trying to protect my online content and why I’m less fussed about it today.

Let’s talk about some experiences and realities for a moment:

• The minute you publish your information and content on the web, it is fair game. Now maybe it shouldn’t be but that is just the way it is. And rather than force people into hiding who utilize your content, why not just embrace it and ask for the link back to your site. You’ll get more traffic that way.
• Most bloggers set themselves up for reducing exposure and their sphere of influence. I can’t tell you how many times I have contacted bloggers asking for permission to republish something brilliant they wrote only to receive no response. Why? Was it to protect their original post that now fewer people will read? Or maybe they just did not want to share, who knows. If you are going to be a successful blogger it is because you have something valuable to say and people want to read what is on your mind. If people don’t know about you or your blog, how will you grow your sphere of influence? Why limit or restrict people that want to republish or link to something you say?
• RSS makes it very easy to distribute your content. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows people to view your feeds in their browser or feed reader without ever visiting your site. Bloggers have a choice between supplying a full text feed or a summary feed to bring people back to their site. The very nature of the RSS feed makes it easy for people to redistribute your work. In fact this blog uses automated tools to republish the feeds from open source bloggers and that gives those bloggers even more exposure and links back to their sites.
• Bad people will steal your stuff anyway. I learned a long time ago that there are some bad people online but then again there are some bad people in the offline world as well. Facing down those people, those content stealers, leaves us with two choices. Option A is constant policing and confrontation or Option B is to focus on new content and creative work and let people use that work and let them link back to you. Good people will, bad people won’t and there isn’t a damn thing you can do to change that.
• Legal action to go after someone is expensive. What I learned in my early days about going after people that stole my content with lawyers and lawsuits, was that in the end, it was pointless. It took money, time, money, energy, money and aggravation. Now don’t get me wrong, I won every case but in hindsight, it was a complete waste of time and creative energy. What I learned was that unreasonable people will behave unreasonably.
• Nothing anyone, including myself, has to say is so valuable as to be worth restricting it. I do a lot of public domain research and writing and because that information is in the public domain it lives again through me and others. Books that I have written and published conventionally through publishers will die a slow death on the lost shelves of basements and libraries. Because those books are tightly protected by publishers, those words, thoughts and information will be lost and not exposed to many others that could have benefited from them. What good does that serve? My work is protected, but lost. One of the greatest books of all time that I have read in my life, How To Live 365 Days A Year, is essentially lost because it belongs to a traditional publisher. The words and thoughts inside that book are so important but locked away. If that book was accessible by more people then not only would readers benefit but the author would be well known, instead of lost and forgotten.
• Traffic and awareness create opportunity and money. Without awareness of your work the majority of bloggers will never be heard unless they want to invest money on advertising or life currency in working harder and harder to get their work out through guest posts and linking. Why not just let people use your work and link back to it if they want to to let you build awareness while you sleep? Makes sense.
• People will link back. I have found that the more permission you give people to use your stuff, the more likely they will and link back to you in appreciation. The majority of people do good things and help you, rather than hurt you.
• Why blog in fear? I learned that once I gave up caring who used what and where, the more liberating and freeing it was to the creative process and the writing that I do. I also learned that the more people used my stuff, the more people searched for the information that I wrote and that always came up strongly in the search engines and that led to more traffic. Take this blog for example, it will be interesting to see if it grows and if awareness spreads. This blog started from zero subscribers and will only grow if I write something worth reading and people know about this blog from the use of my information and material by others.

What I learned from being online since 1994 is that I refuse to blog in fear. Use my work, link to me if you want to and just know that my life is richer for being brave enough to have that point of view.