What is an Electronic Author? by Richard Grusin

This article focuses on how electronic writing has changed our authorship and culture of writing. We've spoken in class about ownership of our writing, which is something we concentrate on when we teach the freshman composition classes. However, the mere fact that we can now link our writings to other web pages makes me reconsider this: If I choose to link to another person's Web page because it contains relevant (or even just amusing) content to what I'm writing, does that somehow change ownership of my own words?

I'm also thinking about Yahoo!, which is constantly running a "Laura Bush is all about education" ad (this would need its own post) right now. What if I link to Yahoo! for relevant text, a reader clicks on it, and the stinking Bush ad pops up? Does this now somehow infer that I believe in that content as well? Frightening.