Excelsior the book

Andrew, this has been covered, and while I don't defend the book, that's positively ridiculous. They'd be making money from the sale of binding glue, labor, and paper.

You can disagree, and you do, but the bullshit like "I don't see how it could be any more clear" is exactly why I started posting: because we had a gaggle of geese running around thinking everyone saw it in crystal-clear terms exactly like theirs, and no one in fact did.

This isn't material (in the sense of a work of art, or a magazine article) and it was never published. Internet forums are the equivalent of talking with friends.

I understand why it's bad form to not float the idea at all or ask for input, but for the life of me, I don't understand why anyone would be upset about this thing's existence. There's no harm done. ILX posts aren't something anyone does in the course of business, so it hurts no one on the money end. ILX posts are available to many more people every day, so privacy concerns are out.

Subtract those words and they'd be selling blank books, and while there are companies who do that, I don't think that's what CafePress had in mind.

Photocopiers don't sell blank paper -- but they don't sell math finals, either.

People here link photos, sometimes from large money-making websites, without fucking asking.

And yet people are getting their knickers in a knot about a pissy little photocopied chapbook that NO ONE WILL BUY so NO ONE WILL PROFIT FROM and if you all stopped talking about, IT WOULD GO AWAY QUIETLY.

Unlike ILX itself which is here for all to see. I *really* do not understand the reactions to this.

Having said all that, I think the concept is also silly, cus why would I want to buy a paper copy of something I could print out myself? I mean, huh?

exactly, it's not like someone's singing out your beautiful words over accordion gina g.

ILX is dead, long live ILX (or something).

For the record, people (after an initial "eh?" period) conceded that the photographer had a point and removed his images. After we removed his images, he hung around and continued to whine and complain as if we were still linking his images. This was the point when we told him to fuck off.

Nobody would buy a blank book.

It has not stopped many (most) people here from linking images willy-nilly all over the board the rest of the time though, which semanticallty isnt far removed from what this is about, to my mind (you may not agree tho). I'm guilty of it myself, of course.

I dont think the book is a good idea, but only cos I think it is stupid.

I also think everyone's just been superbly trolled. Dropt a bomb and walked off, he has. Hasnt anyone noticed how quiet he went? Hmm.

Let this ruin everyones good natured friendships, if y'all like...

xpost: Andrew, nobody would have bought this one anyway. I mean c'mon. IT WAS A TROLL.

No way! That ILB thread was quoted in German newspapers, Italian newspapers, Australian newspapers, British newspapers, BBC radio, and even a magazine and NO ONE was ever contacted for permission.

say if we had been using an ad-supported forum provider we'd have made money for the forum for linking to those images that will make people read these threads more and give more ad exposure.

Sure, that's the thing -- on one end, it's not like image leeching; on the other, it's not like anthologizing peoples' published work without their permission, either. It's not the same as anything. It's its own thing.

(And I can't believe it's trolling, not only because Mark Grout is not exactly a name to leap to mind when I think of trolls, but because it would be such a bizarre thing to try trolling with -- and a CafePress shop takes some time and work to set up, if he didn't just fake the .pdf -- especially since it's something people have suggested before.)

Mark if that wasnt your aim, FFS speak up, your silence is deafening and suspicious.

I CAN'T HEAR A FUCKING THING.

(J0hn leaving is a big deal, of course, if he doesn't change his mind; but I think the fact of that and the size of the thread are making people overestimate the severity of general response.)

(xpost; oh okay, sorry -- but still, you see what I mean? Mark would be a criminal genius to have been able to predict this.)

I might have something to say about the fairness of that.

That is so absurd.

How come? If I suddenly found that ILX was a direct reason for me getting a $1,000 excess bandwidth bill (and normal use of pix of mine doesnt worry me, I might add), I'd be shitty at that; if I was quoted in a printed copy of something no one will make money let alone profit from, it wouldnt bother me at all.

And I am a published writer. I also have works of mine online. Someone could potentially take those and make a book of it on cafepress without asking me. But I still wouldnt be pissed off - because it still says I wrote it (assuming nothings been changed, as I assume here also), and no one else is making money off my work. Net result, I get more exposure, which any writer wants.

I know thats not the point here though, but still. Anyway this has all become a bit silly.

To make an analogy (and I hate making analogies between the 'real world' and the internet simply because they are always both limited and misunderstood) it's a bit like this: the publishing of a web page is akin to providing a series of little packages in a storefront. Each package contains either an image, a slab of text, or layout instructions. There's one package labelled "pick me first!" which usually contains information on what's in the other packets, and how to assemble a 'front page' from a collection of image packets and text packets. Each of these packages must be taken separately and assembled by the viewer.

Complaining about image leeches is akin to this shop owner saying "Hey! You can't just buy that image packet! Sure, I'm providing it here, but you're supposed to use it in conjunction with these other packets over there!" There are 'real world' ways in which this store owner can enforce his packets are taken in specific groupings, just as there are ways image leeching can be prevented online. (it is ridiculously simple technically to prevent images from being linked from other sites, it's just most people would rather complain and whinge than try to solve the problem)

Ugh, that was rather unclear but I hope it makes my position known.

This book hurts no one. There is no potential for it to cause harm - it costs no poster income (as copyright infringement is designed to protect), and it doesn't increase public exposure (as everything included in the book is already public and Googlable).

Thus, bandwidth-leeching is inherently more harmful and thus worse than this book, because the former has the potential to do harm, where the latter doesn't.

Neither is something the average ILX poster needs to worry about, but saying that one is irrelevant to the other, or that image-leeching pales in comparison to this doesn't hold a lot of water.

Monetary damage is a visceral thing, yes. And reputational damage, among other things, is harder to prove, yes. But the latter can lead to the former.

Bandwidth-leeching can be easily controlled by your hypothetical site's owner. ILX threads published through Cafe Press cannot. The one thing to Mark's credit is that, even though he didn't ask beforehand, he at least notified ILX. What if ILX is not so lucky next time?

Anyway, clearly there's never going to be a consensus on this, and I disagree with a few things on here, but there's nothing more to be said than that, really.