Rip, Mix, Burn, Autolink

Remember Apple’s ad campaign during the heyday of Napster? It was “Rip, Mix, Burn.” (video) The message was clear – clip and mix your music your way. After all, it is your music. You bought it. Unfortunately, Apple ran into a bit of hot water over the campaign because the music industry (e.g. the content creators) felt it encouraged CD ripping and file sharing.

Today a similar controversy is bubbling, sparked by the Google Toolbar's new Autolink feature. It inserts links into online content that were not put there by the publisher. Now Time magazine is reporting that Marissa Mayer at Google says that the company will unlikely back down unless users demand it. Marissa, what are the bloggers, chop liver?

The question at heart is what right does a user have to change the content of a non-editable Web page they didn't create? Cory Doctorow says..

“It's my screen, and I should be able to control it; companies like Google and individuals should be able to provide tools and services to let me control it.”

This made Robert Scoble so mad, he nearly crushed his Channel 9 Guy with his bare hands. Scoble wrote...

“This is such a slippery slope. Do you really want to go down this slope? If you allow Google to do this, you are opening a pandora's box that you'll never close.”

I agree with Scoble. This is a pivotal discussion that bloggers, journalists, PR professionals and marketers need to jump into. Do you really want Google, Microsoft, George W. Bush, God or anyone adding links to your content? You know my position here. If I were you, I wouldn't want this – unless the site is intentionally part of the read/write web, such as a wiki or a blog that is open to comments. Your content is your content. If you care about the Web, I urge you to sign this petition that I created and spread the word. We need to send a message to Google and others that messing with content is just plain wrong.