Insight

I first learned about Insight through this post at Signal to Noise: “Smart” pasting at The New Yorker site.

If you copy text from a site that has Insight installed, when you paste it the paste will include a link back to the original post. That link is easily deleted if you don’t want it but if you do nothing, will be included.

The comment thread at Signal to Noise which is now closed is fascinating: many people think it’s invasive to modify what a user copies. Only in the end does someone come up with the idea that these users who are copying are copying content that is not theirs. The least they can do is allow a link back to the original content. But, of course that link can easily be deleted so no one is forced to accept links back to the original text.

This seems like a great idea to me and as someone who has found entire essays of mine lifted and reposted elsewhere, not to mention having my photographs stolen from flickr and reposted with some else’s copyright, I’m all for at least nudging people who take other people’s original content toward acknowledging the content’s author.

Oh, and I don’t have Insight installed here.