Magik Quilter

Last post I mentioned that I had contacted Google about the porn on the magic directory where my blog was listed…okay how many others beside Kara thought that was hysterically funny? And I didn’t even describe how as I copied the address of the relevant pages for Google I placed magazines over the top part of the page to screen my view and was clicking over to different sites every time my husband entered the room and my son for that matter!

So I may have jumped the gun a tad when I said that someone else took my photos. Basically he was trying to show people interested in sustainability the things that can be made from people’s waste, in doing so he placed the sustainability group from flickr on his photo gallery of his community blog. Obviously there was a link back to my blog but my son thought it might have been a good idea to put a disclaimer up as well somewhere. The person involved is a brilliant man whose company [ from his invention or discovery not sure what you call it in IT ] is providing a way of identifying the user’s interests and then matching them up with books, dvds, web sites of interest, blogs, etc etc So after a rocky start a few very interesting emails ensued. Had a very interesting dialogue with Trent who is at the forefront of data mining and also copyright issues for the near future.

What I find incredible with the internet and my use of it is how it connects people and allows, if they are willing, free flowing exchanges of ideas and philosophies. My son does not agree with the future ideas of Trent as he is a writer who has written about copyright issues and has in fact had his work misappropriated by a school in Germany, but it is fascinating to me the way things that are in the back of my mind like should I allow people to freely use my designs and how can I get seen in the larger market place are brought into the forefront by something like someone accessing my photos in a way I did not know they could. For some time I have been concerned about the possibility of people stealing my designs, but my original intent for this blog was to share my knowledge and spread the word on sustainability. I offer a service as well to people who are not able to sew for whatever reason. I am not expecting to make a fortune as obviously quilts take some time from conception to birthing [there is an actual term called birthing the quilt...isn't that amazing]?

Recently I was asked if my design was available for sale which was very exciting. I quite frankly had not thought about that aspect of it but am considering the way forward especially in light of the conversation I had with Trent on his design of encoding photos and designs for monetization, a bit like the way CDs are encoded to protect against copyright theft but this will involve payment and I think copyright protection.

So this has produced some furious debate in my home between myself and my son about how some people place other peoples photos or sketches or poetry and writing on their own personal blog post without asking permission. Also on how flickr is aware of copyright law as it stands at present but is I guess unaware that entire flickr groups are able to be shown on other blog sites without the individuals who own the copyright being aware of that. While Trent’s blog was a helpful one to the environment I was obviously not concerned but I am trying to think of the porn, oh sorry, magic one that listed my blog on it….what if they put up a flickr group of cute children or something? As their advertising is porn driven it is possible…hopefully we would demand that this be removed [ remember that Google did remove the site from their search engine after my complaint] and also hope that a concerned public would police these types of issues.

Speaking of that JTrent Adams also said that my community of quilting and blogging friends would hopefully police any future violations of copyright in regards to my work and that the tradeoff for letting my stuff outpour to the public would be worth it. So thanks in advance readers for that and let us hope that his vision for the future is not corrupted by unscrupulous business types for profit [he is providing a lot of his ideas/inventions free to the public] and that we all can stay true to our original ideals in this fast changing digital age.