Quote:
Originally posted by RawAlex
I think trying to charge the end surfer for something he can get for free almost any other place is just not a good business model. It will only drive people to other TGPs that don't "skim" (nice way of saying circle jerking).
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OK, first, I agree with Alex about this.
But second, no I don't think charging a fee is "stealing" or violating copyright. The gallery is obviously going to be freely available on other "free" TGPs or to anyone who knows the URL.
What the surfer is (theoretically) paying for is
the TGP owner's value-added convenience of providing the links in an easy-to-find format.
Rand McNally doesn't "own" the interstate highway system either, but people will pay for maps that correlate physical data into an easy-to-use and convenient format. It's the effort put into the organizing and correlating the data that is being charged for here, not the "right" to see the gallery itself - a gallery that in fact is still freely accessible to the surfer who knows where to look.
But again, the argument is moot since I agree that the surfers are gonna go where the data is already organized and presented for free, rather than paying for it, just like a for-pay search engine is not gonna compete with Google, no matter how good it might otherwise be.