So, a thief can make a copy of the content you will give away for free,
and erase your name from it and put their name on it,
and get people who need some work done to come to the thief?
Would that be okay with you? I doubt it.
I'll agree that giving away software for free is a great way of
building market share, especially in a rapidly developing market.
And being able to show a prospective client what the last three Web
sites you developed look like and feel like, and to be able to have
pointers to other sites you have created - without hauling around
a tray of slides, or a tape, or big portfolio to the offices of those
prospective clients - well, that's a very nice thing.
But if you were to find that a company had copied all the components
of a Web site you created, and removed your name from them, and made
some cosmetic or non-creative changes - "Company ABC" to "Firm XYZ" -
how would you feel about that? Would it represent a loss of income?
Would it feel like a theft? Or would you take it as a compliment?
>So let the copyright-minded people worry about protecting their content,
>and deal with the intrincacies (:-) of copyright law ; let them worry
>about crypto-sealed digital envelopes or whatever ; let Digimark develop
>ever more complicated, and costly, watermark systems : these are the
>dinosaurs of the net ! The future lies with free content.
Okay, if you really believe that, build it and see if anyone comes.
Like the dinosaurs, we won't know which species will survive until afterward
- we can't tell if a big reptile will survive or not, or which of those
new-fangled warm-blooded creatures will do well, and which ones will die out.
All we can do is try things out and see what works. (And watch for meteors!)
Good luck
-- Denis McKeon dmckeon@swcp.com