In the early days I didn't understand a lot of that, how important it was to those doing the slog, and I just threw things up with abandon.
One time I had a distinct psychic hit from Plep of irritation and whatever it is that people feel when they feel they aren't being given credit they're due. Another time it was the late lamented dublog. Doing all the work of digging out the sources and putting them up and then seeing someone else put those same links up and knowing that others may see that and think they did the work rankles. It's like the Intellectual Property disputes.
Too much like them for me. I try to avoid plagiarism, or really what it is I try to avoid is the feeling of accomplishment when it isn't earned. But what's most important is the work.
What this is becoming because of all that work. We're making something that's too big for us to understand what it is. What it isn't, what it won't ever be, is a big pile of cumulative personal attainments, even though it's made out of almost nothing but that.
Sony is disgusting because of their business practices. Atomizing those business practices, even when no money changes hands, isn't progress.
It's tingly to see your site mentioned, especially by someone popular. And it's confirming to recognize and be recognized.
But that isn't what's central and important. A lot of the best art and photography I find on the net is in the public domain now. We need to get all the way away from a system of values that makes that less important than something that has a copyright on it.
Ours.
