If you are reading this page from the URL http://www.skweezer.net/, you need to click this link in order to get this page as it should appear. If you are looking for an RSS feed, here’s mine. In any event, you should know that the organization known as Skweezer is engaging in bandwidth piracy.
Thanks to Jim Elve, I have been notified of the fact that this feed website has been poaching my content, stripping out my ads and feeding in their own. He isn’t the only one to be concerned.
Material on my website is distributed under the Creative Commons license. My particular license states that you are free to distribute my work if: (a) you give the original author credit, (b) you use this work for noncommercial purposes only and (c) you do not alter, transform or build upon this work.
At the very least, Skweezer is in violation of sections (b) and (c), since stripping out my ads and putting their own ones in alters my web page and is for their commercial benefit. Skweezer has also violated the spirit of my copyright by reproducing the content of my blog whole hog without my permission. This is certainly a situation where my permission might not have been granted had they even asked, because what benefit is it to me if my content is reproduced in its entirety? The purpose of my creative commons license is to grant people permission to quote me, or use sections of my posts as the basis of their own posts. I’m willing to be a resource. I am not willing to be a cheap content provider.
This is not an isolated incident. The Blog Herald is covering this problem and has labelled the people behind Skweezer “slime”. The CBC’s Tod Maffin is also up in arms.
I will be writing a cease and desist order. Until then, let Skweezer report on its own site that they are copyright thieves and should be scorned.
Stunned. Just Stunned
The death toll has passed 125,000, primarily because they finally got access to northern Sumatra, one of the closest places to the epicentre. They’re already comparing this disaster to the Krakatoa eruption of the 1880s. In terms of numbers, this disaster has the old one beat, but they are of a pair, aren’t they? Same area, same blast heard round the world? It’s one for the ages.
Here’s another chilling animation.
Hats off to Gordon Campbell, premier of B.C., who announced that his government would commit $8 million in disaster relief. Ontario has announced $5 million, for now, while Canada has added debt relief to its collection of assistance programs, as well as the possibility of DART deployment (a small military force of 250 personnel with a water purification system that can provide fresh drinking water to 100,000 people).
Keep it coming, guys.
Update (Friday, December 31): Alberta has also announced a contribution of $5 million. Thanks, Ralph!