Poor Richard 22
#022/18-Dec-98
POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE NEWS
Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site
Editor: Peter Kent
Top Floor Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/
Over 14,000 Subscribers in more than 100 countries!
IN THIS ISSUE
- Beginner's Column: Who's Linking to You? - Part II
- Leo's Icon Archive
- Who Owns Your Web Site? - Part II
- Registering Your Copyright
- I Can Save You Money!
- InternetDay Special Offer
- Internet Business Jargon Explained
- Business Ezines
- Reading Back Issues
- In Future Issues
**** IF YOU FIND THIS NEWSLETTER USEFUL ... FORWARD IT TO FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES ****
Beginner's Column: Who's Linking to You? - Part II
A couple of months ago I described a method for tracking down Web pages that are linking to your Web site, using the AltaVista search engine:
http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/018.htm#begin
A couple of people emailed me to say that they had tried doing what I suggested, but the search engine found nothing. What's that mean? It doesn't mean that _nobody_ is linking to you, but unfortunately it does mean that not many people are linking to you.
There are a couple more ways to find out who is linking to you.
You can try HotBot:
Type your URL into the search textbox -- the URL of the page you want to find links to (include the http:// piece). Then, from the drop-down list box immediately below the search box, select "links to this URL." When you click the SEARCH button HotBot will find pages linking back to that URL.
This isn't quite the same as the AltaVista system -- AltaVista will search for links to your domain, while HotBot searches for links to a specific Web page. Thus, at HotBot, searching for http://poorrichard.com/, http://www.poorrichard.com/, and http://poorrichard.com/newsltr/ will all give you different results (while at AltaVista searching for poorrichard.com should find pages linking to any page at that domain).
Here's another way to find people linking to your site. Take a look at your hit logs. (If you have your own domain name you should have access to hit logs; if you are using "personal" Web space at an Internet Service Provider, you probably won't ... yet another reason to have your own domain.)
Look in your logs for something called a "Referrer Report," or something similar. For instance, if I look in my logs I see this:
=============================================
Referrer Report
Printing the first 100 referring URLs, sorted by number of
requests.
#reqs: URL
----- ---
172: http://webdesign.miningco.com/blnew.htm
93:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/Books/Sh
opping_and_Services/Booksellers/Computers/Internet/Titles/Wo
rld_Wide_Web/Web_Page_Design/
56: http://www.topfloor.com/cgi-bin/hazel/hazel.cgi
53: http://www.score.org/resourceindex/resource.html
42: http://www.webjump.com/jumppoint/
36: http://www.hostfind.com/info/help/host.feature.html
29: http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=free+web+site
[etc....]
=============================================You can often find interesting stuff in these logs. I had no idea, for instance, that WebJump was linking to me. And the page right at the top is a new one I didn't know about, too. These logs can be especially useful if you get a sudden large increase in traffic, but you're not sure where it's coming from. You may be able to find out by looking in the Referrer Report. Of course if the increase is due to a mention in the press -- so people are typing your URL into their browser rather than clicking on a link -- the logs won't help you.
Leo's Icon Archive
This is a great library of images, full of buttons, bullets, flags, comics, "decorative caps" (ornate capital letters), butterflies, lines, and all sorts of other stuff. Much of this stuff is copyright free -- it's created by Leo Doerr, and he has given express permission for limited use. (Leo believes the rest is also copyright free, though he can't be sure.)
There's a lot of useful stuff here, so check it out at ...
http://www.silverpoint.com/leo/lia/
Who Owns Your Web Site? - Part II
In the last issue I discussed copyright ownership, and pointed out that if you pay a designer to create your site you'd better have an agreement that you own the copyright ... otherwise the designer owns the copyright.
http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/021.htm#begin
I received several emails on this subject. One was from a photographer agreeing with me, and bemoaning the fact that many people -- including most of his clients -- don't understand this point of law. Two others were messages saying that I was wrong, because ... well, just because. Unfortunately neither correspondent explained _why_ I was wrong.
In fact I'm not wrong. I know it sounds strange that you can pay for work yet the designer owns it, but there you are, that's the law. Sure, you can use the work at your Web site -- but the designer still owns the copyright.
In fact I did make a small mistake in the last issue ... the situation is even more stringent than I stated. While verbal contracts are usually quite valid (the problem is proving them), U.S. copyright law clearly states that you must have a _written_ agreement.
I recently found a reference to this subject in a great book called "Making Money in Technical Writing." (Okay, I'm biased -- I wrote it.) A couple of years ago I wrote about copyright ownership in detail in this book, and actually quoted a copyright office publication on this subject ... so, in the interest of clarification, and because I can quickly copy the text from the book's manuscript and paste it in this newsletter, here's what I said ...
--------
Now, I want to be quite clear about this, because you'll run into people who won't believe it. I've excerpted the following from Circular 9, "Works-Made-For-Hire Under The 1976 Copyright Act," available from the Copyright office or on the Internet.
Section 101 of the copyright law defines a work made for hire as:
- a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
- a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.
The document defines the term supplementary work, then continues:
DETERMINING WHETHER A WORK IS MADE FOR HIRE
Whether or not a particular work is made for hire is determined by the relationship between the parties. This determination may be difficult because the statutory definition of a work made for hire is complex and not always easily applied. That definition was the focus of a recent Supreme Court decision (Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U.S. 730 [1989]). The court held that to determine whether a work is made for hire, one must first ascertain whether the work was prepared by (1) an employee or (2) an independent contractor.
We're not interested in the employee, so let's see what it says about an independent contractor:
If a work is created by an independent contractor (that is, someone who is not an employee under the general common law of agency), the work is a specially ordered or commissioned work and part 2 of the statutory definition applies. Such a work can be a work made for hire only if (1) it comes within one of the nine categories of works listed in part 2 of the definition and (2) there is a written agreement between the parties specifying that the work is a work made for hire.
This piece of information may come as a complete surprise to you; I know that few writers I've spoken with understand this.
So, let me restate this quite clearly: The fact that a client has paid you to create a document does not mean the client owns the document. Unless you have signed a written agreement transferring all rights in some manner you still own the document and are only giving away limited rights to the document.
--------
By the way, I went on to say this ...
--------
This copyright information is well worth remembering, because it may help you if you ever run into problems with a client who won't pay. If they use the document without paying, they've broken copyright law. In fact if you think you are running into problems with a client, you should probably register the work as soon as it's finished (it costs $20). If the work is not registered all you can be awarded is actual damages ˜- the money the client hasn't paid you. But register within three months of publication, or before the client has had a chance to use the document and infringe your rights, and the client will also be liable for statutory damages (in effect, a fine), and attorney fees.
--------
In fact I recommended that writers avoided all mention of "work for hire" or "copyright" in their contracts, because it put them in a stronger position (this book explains how to make a living as a freelance technical writer). So, that's it. Those of you who don't believe me can take it from here and do your own investigation. If you'd like to see Circular 9, you can find it in Adobe Acrobat format (.pdf) here:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ9.pdf
And there's lots more information about copyright law here:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/
Oh, and if you'd like to learn more about Making Money in Technical Writing, visit this page:
http://www.topfloor.com/techwr/
Registering Your Copyright
How, then, do you register your copyright? Written works are typically registered using Form TX. Visual Arts -- including cartoons, comic strips, and photographs -- are registered with form VA. You can find these forms here:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/forms/
How do you register Web sites? That depends ...
There's an Information Circular (Number 66) called "Copyright Information for Online Works," which is available in Adobe Acrobat format here:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ66.pdf
You have to pick the type of information that predominates in your Web site -- text, images, or sounds -- and pick the appropriate form. For instance, if your site is mainly text, you'd use Form TX. The cost of each registration is $20.
When you register, you are only registering the information at that point -- as the information changes, you have to re-register. That could be a hassle -- you don't want to re-register every day! -- but you only need to register a work within three months of publication ("If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.") So you might consider registering four times each year. In fact you may be able to classify the work as an "automated database," in which case "a group of updates, published or unpublished, to a database, covering up to a 3-month period, within the same calendar year, may be combined in a single registration." See Circular 65, "Copyright Registration for Automated Databases":
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ65.pdf
You may also be able to register some of your online publications by classifying them as serials (published weekly or less often) or daily newsletters (published more often than weekly). Then you could get a group registration, registering a bunch of them at the same time. See Circular 62, "Copyright Registration for Serials on Form SE" and Circular 62c, "Group Registration of Daily Newsletters":
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ62.pdf
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ62c.pdf
If you can't use Adobe Acrobat files, you can get the Copyright Office to send the information to you. Call (202) 707-3000.
By the way, for those of you who need to find out about Copyright Registration in countries other than the U.S., you can find a list of copyright administrations at the World Intellectual Property Organization Web site. Here's the page with the list of copyright administrations:
http://www.wipo.org/eng/general/links/address/htm/cr/eng/index.htm
This is the WIPO main page:
Unfortunately the listing only seems to include street addresses, not Web addresses. You might also try the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations' (IFRRO) Web page:
http://www.copyright.com/ifrro/
RROs (Reproduction Rights Organizations) are non-governmental, non-profit organizations set up to "facilitate international collective administration of reproduction and related copyright rights." They have a big list of RROs, some of which have Web pages ... you may be able to use these pages as a way to find the registration authority in the country you're interested in.
I Can Save You Money!
I can save you money ... I really can ...
At least, that's what readers and reviewers have been saying about "Poor Richard's Web Site: Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site."
I received email the other day from a reader praising the book, and complaining that he hadn't found it two years earlier. If he had, he said, he would have been "$5,000 ahead of where I am today." David Garvey, a writer for the The New England Non-Profit Quarterly, _did_ find the book first, and claimed that it "saved us thousands of dollars and many hours of work."
The book's reviewed in Home Office Computing (Jan. 99); I haven't seen the review yet, but I'm told it's good. (The book and my Web site were mentioned in a Home Office Computing article just two months earlier.)
Poor Richard's Web Site is probably the most widely reviewed and praised computer book since the dawn of time ... in the history of writing and publishing ... since man first walked on earth. If you don't have a copy, it's time you did!
For many more reviews and testimonials, sample chapters, and a table of contents, visit ...
Poor Richard's Web Site is in many bookstores, and can be ordered by others; it can also be ordered on-line, through the mail, by fax, or by phone.
See ...
Order direct from the publisher, and you'll get a 100%, 1-Year Guarantee. If the book doesn't help you set up a low-cost yet effective Web site, send it back for a refund!
InternetDay Special Offer
I ran across an interesting offer at the InternetDay site recently. They have something called the Ultimate Promotion package. For $69.95 you get the following:
* A submission service -- submits one URL to 900 search engines four times over a year.
* 100 click throughs from trafficX, a button-exchange network.
* A one-year membership in the ClickThru network, with 20 guaranteed clickthroughs.
* A link on the Home Business Magazine Web site.
* 10% discount on InternetDay advertising rates (InternetDay is an email newsletter going to around 140,000 subscribers).
* 2,500 banner displays on the Homepagers' banner network.
* 2,500 banner displays on the CyberLink banner network.
* A banner ad on the Net1 directory for six months.
* 500 free submissions through Link-o-Matic, a "free for all links pages" submission service (I discussed this service in earlier issues of this newsletter:
http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/013.htm#begin
and
http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/016.htm#link
* A variety of discounts -- a listing in a a Wired or Entrepreneur Magazine print ad, $10 discount on WebCards, a free site check up from NetMechanic, a 10% discount on advertising at the Recommend-It.com site, 5% discount on the ImediaFax press-release service, and so on.
If these are the sorts of services you've been looking for recently, check out the offer at ...
http://www.internetday.com/promote/
Internet Business Jargon Explained
If you've got five or ten minutes for a little extra reading, click over to Microsoft Internet Magazine to read Christopher Locke's article titled "We Came, We Clicked, We Yawned." I've met and chatted with Christopher just once, but liked his irreverent attitude ... this is not your average Internet-hype kinda guy. He has a very strange little online publication called EGR (Entropy Gradient Reversal) ... I must say I was surprised to see that he has a regular column in a Microsoft magazine.
Nonetheless, he does, and in one of those columns he explained the meaning of the terms "eyeballs," "aggregation," and "disintermediation," three terms that are slung around the Internet-business world way more than people actually understand them. He also explains why, perhaps, disintermediation may actually be a marketing mechanism that's on the right track.
I'd like to quote him here, because he's saying something I've said for some time, and, well, I like the way he says it:
"Some companies, especially those brewed by die-hard technocrats, continue to believe -- despite massive evidence to the contrary -- that the world will beat a path to their Web.door for a glimpse of their BetterMouseTrap. More traditional companies are beset with a different form of denial: the wish-fulfillment fantasy that people cannot resist their Chairperson's Letter to the Stockholders from the current annual report. Of course, we know the truth: We came. We clicked. We yawned."
And ...
"What do companies that put up Web sites care most about? Their products, natch. They have to. But we don't have to. We can just blithely surf away."
Take a look for yourself: http://home.microsoft.com/reading/archives/voices-8-4.asp
Business Ezines
The following is an article written by Terry Dean, an Internet copywriter. I know of some of these newsletters, though not all. But you may want to check them out to see if they can help you with your Internet marketing campaigns.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Top Seven Free E-zines For Growing Your Business Online In 199"
~~~~~~~~~~~
These days, e-zines are too easy to publish and distribute. With the introduction of egroups, onelist, and others, everyone and their hamster is getting into the game. The result is redundancy across topics and a ton of fluff.
However, there are some genuine treats out there. They make up the 10% that I intend to continue reading religiously. I'd like to tell you about a few in the 10% that make the grade and why it's important that you subscribe...
Like many people who market their businesses on the Internet, I find this medium to be one of the most competitive and challenging, environments entrepreneurs face. It's also one of the most rewarding. I know you can relate.
So, in wishing you and your Internet business a great new year, I'd like to point you in the direction of seven of my favorite email newsletters that will help you build your Internet business faster, easier, and more securely through intelligent Internet marketing...
You can subscribe to each of these ezines at once by visiting http://www.bizpromo.com/ezines.html or by following the instructions under each description:
1) Dr. Ralph Wilson's "Web Marketing Today"
It has always been my favorite and is sure to become one of yours, as well. Dr. Wilson archives this e-zine at his site. His writing style, candor, consistency, knowledge, and ability to explain things to the proverbial 4-year old is second to none. Check this one out right now.
To subscribe: http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt/
Or email: join-web-marketing@sparklist.com
2) "DEMC's E-Magazine"
DEMC focuses on small business and entrepreneurial issues. DEMC will keep you and your business on the cutting edge with insightful tips, reviews, and feature articles. With a circulation of over 300,000, it's one of the most popular ezines anywhere. You should definitely check this one out!
To subscribe: http://www.demc.com
Or email: Subscribe@demc2.com
3) Jim Daniel's "The BizWeb Gazette"
I've always enjoyed Jim's e-zine. Despite its large subscriber base and Jim's reputation and fame, I get a real grassroots feeling from his writing. Jim has sold thousands of books, software copies, and other products over the Internet - and you'll get a real "insiders" perspective from Jim.
To subscribe: http://www.bizweb2000.com/subscrib.htm
Or email: subscribe@jdd-publishing.com
4) Kevin Needham's "Active Internet Marketing"
This is a very professional e-zine. Each week, it discusses marketing, service, e-commerce and a variety of other subjects. The articles are well-written, well-researched and always enlightening. They also have a gigantic subscriber base (over 50,000 subscribers served each week).
To subscribe: http://www.inetexchange.com/
Or email: subscribe-inet-mailer@send.memail.com
5) Peter Kent's "Poor Richard's Website News"
Peter has been around the block several times. He has written dozens of books, many of which can be easily found at BookStar, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc. His e-zine is always chock full of useful pieces of information. If he tries something new (software, marketing process, etc.), he will report back to his subscribers about his success/failure. His e-zine on "Website Creation" is archived at his site. Please check this one out.
To subscribe: http://www.poorrichard.com/
Or email: subscribe-prwebnews@lists.lyris.net
6) Greg Schliesmann's "Breakthrough Internet Marketing Weekly"
Every issue of BMW is jam-packed with solid information. Greg doesn't write articles as much as complete guides. He will take you from point A to point B on a particular topic. Those who subscribe to this e-zine know exactly what I'm talking about. BMW is one of my favorites. (Thanks, Greg!)
To subscribe: http://www.jvmarketer.com
Or email: subscribe-internet-marketing@maillist.dundee.net
7) Jim Wilson's "VirtualPROMOTE Gazette"
I've always enjoyed this e-zine for its content and dry wit. There's plenty of resources here. Another thing I like about Jim's e-zine is the familiarity that he promotes for those who write articles for it. To explain, Jim has a group of people that submit a continuing series of articles to his e-zine. One guy, "The Hitman," is on article # 40-something in the series. As a result, you get to know, like and look forward to "The Hitman's" articles.
To subscribe: http://virtualpromote.com/gazetteform.html
Or email: webmaster@virtualpromote.com subject: "subscribe"
I hope you find these free email newsletters to be very valuable - I know I have. Again, you can subscribe to each of them at once by visiting www.bizpromo.com/ezines.html . Enjoy!
Terry Dean
Reading Back Issues
If you need to refer to back issues of this newsletter -- and search the archives -- you can find them at the following location: http://PoorRichard.com/newsltr/
In Future Issues ...
All sorts of things too numerous to mention ... just keep reading, and forward the newsletter to friends and colleagues!
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