OT - Philatelic Webmasters

J. A. Mc. wrote in message
...
As the owner of a web site (some philatelic material), I've just found
out that an Amazon.Com subsidiary "Alexa Web" is archiving and
apparently selling the contents of the web, either in whole or in
combined special categories.

The 'discovery' was made possible by their hammering of my pages after
a change of host servers.

This mean that they have compete copies of your material and are
possibly making a profit off your copyrighted works!

see: http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/alexa_crawl.html

If you are an owner, you should have access to your .htaccess file.
It's in the main -public_html- area.

To block their copying of your pages, simply add:
" deny from 209.237.238. "

If you want to see what they 'own' of your pages, visit the "wayback
machine"!

John, maybe I am a bit dumb, but I don't see the problem.
I have just visited the "wayback machine", and made a
search on my own websites. Being indexed there doesn't
make them more of an "owner" of my pages than Google
or any other search engine.

What concerns philately, any philatelic webpage will "drown"
in their billions of archives, so I wouldn't worry too much.
After all, it's "only" webpages that in most cases change
constantly, not physical material. But, of course, as you
suggest, a webmaster can block them from accessing.
Anybody who *wishes* to copy illegitimately, can do so
without problems, no matter how much one protects one's
pages.

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 18:57:45 -0700, Eric Bustad
found these unused words floating about:

J. A. Mc. wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 22:50:50 +0200, "A.M.Heindorff"
found these unused words floating about:


J. A. Mc. wrote in message
...

As the owner of a web site (some philatelic material), I've just found
out that an Amazon.Com subsidiary "Alexa Web" is archiving and
apparently selling the contents of the web, either in whole or in
combined special categories.

The 'discovery' was made possible by their hammering of my pages after
a change of host servers.

This mean that they have compete copies of your material and are
possibly making a profit off your copyrighted works!

see: http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/alexa_crawl.html

If you are an owner, you should have access to your .htaccess file.
It's in the main -public_html- area.

To block their copying of your pages, simply add:
" deny from 209.237.238. "

If you want to see what they 'own' of your pages, visit the "wayback
machine"!

John, maybe I am a bit dumb, but I don't see the problem.
I have just visited the "wayback machine", and made a
search on my own websites. Being indexed there doesn't
make them more of an "owner" of my pages than Google
or any other search engine.

What concerns philately, any philatelic webpage will "drown"
in their billions of archives, so I wouldn't worry too much.
After all, it's "only" webpages that in most cases change
constantly, not physical material. But, of course, as you
suggest, a webmaster can block them from accessing.
Anybody who *wishes* to copy illegitimately, can do so
without problems, no matter how much one protects one's
pages.


Mette:

The pages aren't just being indexed! If that's all I'd not be
bothered!

The full pages are being 'archived' and supplied "on disk" at request.
Your can see what your pages -were- years back.

You can request a compilation of a topic and they'll group websites
together, from their archives and send out the CD's of the information
indicating it's an off-line 'service' as well.

The "wayback machine" only indicates what they have in -public
viewable- storage. Read the full description of 'services' on the
link.

No BD to me now, I've totally blocked their access.

It seems to me that they are providing a service. There have been very
many good websites that have disappeared for one reason or other in the
short history of the World Wide Web. If they are preserving all this
(and it seems to me that I have heard of others doing this also), then
it seems to me to be a good thing. Note that Google also *caches" many
web pages.

There is, of course, possible problems with their taking copies of pages
w/o the permission of owners.

Especially if the page so states and whether stated or not, it's still
a violation of the updated Copyright Act.

Thay can archive, but 'selling copies' - as they clearly offer to do -
is a specifically named violation.

One could say, along the lines you mentioned, that those who copy and
distribute software and music and videos are 'doing a service' to keep
'out-of-print' copies available.

Quite a trip down memory lane - I just took a look at my first effort at
building a website. It does raise one thorny question, though: I once had a
lawyer complain that, in a web page I had built 2 years previously, I had
used his company's product name in a generic sense without giving the
company credit. I changed the original page immediately but it is quite
possible that this archive still contains my original effort. My
transgression was pretty minor but what if I had published a page in which I
had falsely accused someone of something nasty? My own copy of the page and
the one anyone would find on the web would be "clean" but who knows what
might be lurking in the archive.

--
Cheers - John Mycroft

www.agands.com - in beautiful Asheville, NC

Quite a trip down memory lane - I just took a look at my first effort at
building a website. It does raise one thorny question, though: I once had a
lawyer complain that, in a web page I had built 2 years previously, I had
used his company's product name in a generic sense without giving the
company credit. I changed the original page immediately but it is quite
possible that this archive still contains my original effort. My
transgression was pretty minor but what if I had published a page in which I
had falsely accused someone of something nasty? My own copy of the page and
the one anyone would find on the web would be "clean" but who knows what
might be lurking in the archive.

--
Cheers - John Mycroft

www.agands.com - in beautiful Asheville, NC

This is indeed an interesting question. I often run across websites that
contain grossly inaccurate information.

Just yesterday I read, in what might have been a high school or college
essay, that the Baedeker Raids of 1942 were RAF raids on Germany in reprisal
for raids on England. The truth is 180 degrees in opposition: the Baedeker
Raids were in reprisal for RAF raids on the German cities of Lubeck and
Rostock, which were the first raids in history to employ area or "carpet"
bombing with the express purpose of destroying entire cities.

Such statements tend to take on a life of their own; repeated often enough,
they become "common gospel" among people who haven't actually done any
serious study of the subject. Archiving such websites certainly is doing no
one a favor!

While I applaud the internet for making it possible for "ordinary people" to
publish their writing, photographs, etc. freely, it has also made possible
the publication of sheer drivel. And, unfortunately, the amount of sheer
drivel seems to overwhelm substantive, well-researched websites.

Bob Ingraham

-------
Author of "Joe Hicks and the Battle for Europe" --
The chance discovery of wartime postcard reveals the tragically
short life of an RCAF airman: http://www.ingraham.ca/bob/joehicks.html.
-------

| Such statements tend to take on a life of their own; repeated often enough,
| they become "common gospel" among people who haven't actually done any
| serious study of the subject. Archiving such websites certainly is doing no
| one a favor!

I found this yesterday when I was going to reply to the post on the dogs of war.
I had thought that the Aussie diggers in the great war, had shot their horses rather than
leave them behind to their fate in Palestine / Egypt .
A few quick searches revealed that this was apparently a fallacy.
I was quite taken aback, I think a lot of Aussies would share this common belief.