Ziff Davis To Website: License To Link, Updated

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently Ziff Davis is threatening pocketpctools.com with legal action for posting a snippet from and link to a Ziff Davis story. Is it just me, or is this sort of the IDEA of the internet? From pocketpctools.com: 'We are currently being threatened with legal action by a large organization that produces news stories (I am trying to find out if I am "allowed" to post the emails they have sent me). A while back (about a month and 70 posts ago), one of our admins posted a story that introduced you to one of their stories. Needless to say, there was a small editorial about the said story, a short quote from the story, a link to, and full credit given to them for the story.'" Update: 08/08 23:55 GMT by S : To clarify, Ziff Davis/EWeek (and not ZDNet, as the submitter and linked story suggest) are involved in this story. Update: 08/09 02:08 GMT by T : Matthew Rothenberg of eWEEK writes with a clarification (below); it seems like this is just a tempest in a teapot, and linkers can breathe easy.

Rothenberg writes: "Hey! I'm the executive editor in charge of eWEEK.com -- and before this situation unravels any farther, I need to make a couple of quick clarifications about our reprint policy:

While I haven't gotten all the details about what happened, this legal warning to PocketPCTools seems to be a result of miscommunication within our company. We understand and embrace the principles under which sites such as PocketPCTools link to and excerpt our content. There are plenty of occasions when a professional media company needs to question the wholesale appropriation of its content or the use of its marks. From everything I understand about the PocketPCTools case so far, this is NOT one of those occasions!

We're moving to correct the situation now ... PocketPCTools was apparently acting within the appropriate bounds of Web etiquette -- actually, doing us a favor by sending us the traffic -- and Ziff Davis was apparently mistaken in issuing this warning.

My personal apologies to anyone inconvenienced by this error. We're investigating the situation now and will act accordingly."

Comments

Let's send a message...

[bergeron76]

... let's boycott ZD websites for the next month or so.

I'm fairly certain that if the /. crowd stopped visiting ZD et al. for a month or so, they would realize the err of their ways.

A tech mag/publisher should know better.

Anyone have a list of Ziff/Davie sites we shouldn't visit for the next few weeks?

Re:Let's send a message...

[WNight]

Let's boycott them by not linking to them. The way Google ranks a page is partly by the popularity of the site. If less people link to ZD they'll show up lower in the rankings.

Like a reverse google-bomb. Less powerful because anyone can post a link, whereas only people who already had ZD links can remove them, but it's still worth a try.

Or, just google-bomb "Ziff Davis" by linking to the page describing their over-zealous legal team. Let people find them, just make sure that damaging information is the first thing they find.

Ha.

[protocol420]

There is no way this will stand up. No laws are being broken (IANAL), and it would kill pretty much every postnukey news site

Hard to Believe

[Scalli0n]

I find this hard to believe, let's see the emails that they 'might not be allowed to post'. Otherwise, it's just them trying to get attention and traffic, in my opinion.

If the content's protected

[rsilvergun]

with a password, then yes, you should need permission/a license to link to the article. However, I believe posting snippets for editorial/review purposes is _always_ legal. It's fair use and newspapers rely on it daily.

If there's no password protection then it's publically available information. As long as you're not cut and pasting, you're not copying, so copywrite doesn't come into play. Heck, as long as the data comes off ziff's servers, the only copying taking place is onto the users computers (which you have an implicit right to do so). This is kinda like me giving a speech in the park and sueing passers-by for infringment.

Now, in the fscked-up world of US copyright law, all the common sense outlined above probably doesn't mean much. All I can say is, good luck to these guys.

Re:Blogs

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! These guys making blogs might have to use some creativity of their own! Perhaps some of them may even start writing some of their own conent, or thinking for themselves!

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm bored to death by the blogs that seem to just go "gee, today I read this article. Isn't it c00l" endlessly. C'mon bloggers - noone (except pagerank) cares about you re-hashing someone elses drivel.

I think the best thing that could happend to the blogging community is if they had to start creating rather than just rehashing content.

Re:Blogs

[the_mad_poster]

Well, it's an obvious sign that they don't want people reading their publications.

So, I canceled my eWeek subscription.

Re:Blogs

[T-Kir]

To be honest, most of the tech orientated net could take pre-emptive action and just stop linking to them at all... pretend they don't exist, less linkage and (maybe) less visitors.

Let ZDNet commit htmleppuku if they wish to.

zndet sucks now

[mantera]

I used to read zdnet a while ago when David Coursey was there, but ever since he got squeezed out it totally sucked. They have this self-promoting Esther Dyson working there whom they interview every now and then and headline her on the front page for a whole week or so; she's such a bore to listen to and her "release 1.0" monthly newsletter is priced at ~$800 yearly subscription. She made me hate the word "visionary".

As always, the summary is wrong.

[xigxag]

This is not about linking. This is about Ziff-Davis (or probably a bot) catching pocketpctools.com (over-)quoting their article. They claim it was plagiarism, ppctools claims it was fair use.

Note that pocketpctools.com still links to the article in dispute at the end of their statement. So linking is obviously not the issue.

That is all. Carry on.

So, in simple terms, the story summary is wrong...

[WIAKywbfatw]

The bad guys in this case are Ziff-Davis Media, publishers of the print magazines and the www.eweek.com/ website that was linked to in pocketpctools.com's article.

ZDNet, which originally was Ziff-Davis's umbrella web prescence now has nothing to do with Ziff-Davis, and thus ZDNet is an innocent party here, so mentioning its name (as the story summary does twice) is completely inaccurate.

In fact, as it stands, the Slashdot story summary is highly actionable, as it places ZDNet in a very negative light for the misdeeds of a totally unrelated company. But, despite the fact that they're almost certainly libelling ZDNet here, the chances of the Slashdot editors actually doing something about it and changing the story summary are minimal.

Yes, confusing Ziff-Davis Media and ZDNet is a mistake that pocketpctools.com themselves make but the Slashdot editors should know better. Some basic fact-checking on their part wouldn't go amiss but that would involve an actual editorial review process, something that Slashdot has never really had, hence the dupes, fakes, spelling and grammar mistakes, inaccuracies, etc that plague virtually every story summary.

Maybe ZDNet initiating legal action against Slashdot would be a good thing. It might actually wake Taco and co. up to the fact that getting it right does matter.

ZD is shooting itself in the foot...

[rarose]

I'm sure like many busy professionals, I don't have time to sort the wheat from the chaff on all the different computer news and magazines sites. I've come to rely on a couple of specialist/niche weblogs to point me to the stories that I need.

ZD's actions are going to result in nobody linking to their material, and thus ZD will effectively disappear from the eyeballs of people like me.

The real question, the business question, is how long it'll take them (or their advertisers) to figure that out.

Re:Blogs

[Weirdofreak]

I think I might vaguely understand.

It's a case of territoriality. The got the story, they want it. They figure that since a lot of other sites with the story will link to theirs, if they stop that from happening, they'll have the story to themselves. Or at least they'll have the original, and presumably best/most reliable/trustworthy/informative/whatever. Therefore, people will stop reading the competition and come to them, the source of all power tee emm.

It's still dumb, but what else can we expect from the human psyche?

#include <standard-disclaimer.h>

Re:Blogs

[Pharmboy]

Instead, I sent this letter to randy_zane@ziffdavis.com who handles media relations at ziffdavis, according to their site.
---
Dear Sirs,

According to a recent article on Slashdot.org, you are demanding licensing for sites to link to material on your site (specifically pocketpctools.com). They say they linked to the article proper, and gave proper credit for the material in their review.

If the article was briefly quoted and proper credit given, via Fair Use Doctrine, then I would consider this to be a misinterpretation of Copyright law on your part, and would see this as an agressive action against weblogs in general. As someone who subscribes to your magazines, I find this very disturbing that you would act to suppress free speech in this way.

I don't have enough information to draw a conclusion since they claim the original article was removed and can not be examined by myself, but I wanted to ask that you please explain further so that I can make an educated decision whether to cancel my subscriptions and discontinue use of your website.

Because I consider this to be an important issue, but do not want to assume your company is guilty of this type of activity, I would request a reply as soon as reasonably possible.

Thank you in advance.

[name, city, state]

----

We shall see if I get a response to what is a polite and reasonable request by a customer.

I thought we had outgrown this.

[Blue_Lizard]

Here's a suitable reaction to this kind of thing...

Don't Link to Us! links to sites that attempt to impose substantial restrictions on other sites that link to them. The Linking Policy for Don't Link to Us! precludes us from requesting permission to link to a site, and compels us to link directly to the targeted page (i.e., a "deep link") rather than to a site's home page. Descriptions of sites' linking policies generally are accurate (though often not complete) at the time they are posted here but are likely to change over time. On occasion a web site will modify its linking policy in response to public ridicule. Perhaps their appearance in Don't Link to Us! will help encourage some of these sites to move forward into the 20th century.
Don't Link to Us! is published by David E. Sorkin.

Your rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Well ZDNET might say watterever they wan't, it's not because they are preparing a syndicated news service (paid of course) that they can bypass law.

The fact is, you have the right to link to their story as long as you cite the source and you have the right to give an exerp of the story as long as it's not a condensed version of the story (meaning that if you understand the whole thing w/o going to ZDnet this means that your exerp has gone too far)

Usualy a 2-3 line expert is considered ok by copyright law.

You're gonna talk about deep linking heh ? Well deep linking has been defined as roughfly more than 4 clicks to the story (there is no magical number) ... so if it's front page or second page you're safe.

That small site needs a defender...

[SmoothTom]

This is JUST the sort of thing that very much needs to be settled in a court of law.

It appears that the pocketpctools site was totally within the law, and that Ziff-Davis has gone well beyond their legitimate ownership rights into harassment. I suspect they are depending on the difference in size to make the smaller opponent simply fold rather than fight them.

We need one of the organizations (EFF?) with the ability, muscle, and money to push this one right back into Ziff-Davis' face. This sort of abuse needs to be stopped, and needs to be stopped hard.

Since this particular incident appears to have clear, clean boundries it might be an ideal one to clear up the legal questions, and to set hard limits.

--
Tomas

Boss of eWEEK.com here

[MatthewRothenberg]

Hey! I'm the executive editor in charge of eWEEK.com -- and before this situation unravels any farther, I need to make a couple of quick clarifications about our reprint policy, both here and on PocketPCTools:

This was a total screw-up involving an overzealous legal intern, not anybody on our online team. There's still some education that needs to happen within our company about what constitutes fair use on the Web -- and unfortunately, this warning went out without the knowledge or approval of our online team.

There are plenty of occasions when a professional media company needs to question the wholesale appropriation of its content. Nevertheless this is manifestly NOT one of those occasions!

In fact, I didn't know that this hornet's nest had been stirred until it hit Slashdot. That's clearly a breakdown of communication, since I'm the guy running the site! :-)

We're moving to correct the situation now ... PocketPCTools was obviously acting within the appropriate bounds of Web etiquette -- actually, doing us a favor by sending us the traffic -- and Ziff Davis was obviously mistaken in issuing this warning.

My personal apologies to anyone inconvenienced by this error, and I'm personally going to see that it isn't repeated in the future.

Matthew Rothenberg
Executive editor
Ziff Davis Internet
http://blog.ziffdavis.com/rothenberg

Re:Boss of eWEEK.com here

[SmoothTom]

Matthew, I'm one of the (probably) many who think that it would be appropriate for eWeek/Ziff Davis Internet to produce a serious article on this sort of thing, and to use what actually happened within your walls as an example.

This is certainly newsworthy, and I feel of more than passing importance.

I look forward to a well researched, well presented article on the subject.

--
Tomas

Re:Boss of eWEEK.com here

[MatthewRothenberg]

I certainly need to get a better read on what happened here before I sign up for that plan, but your comments are very well-taken.

There are a whole raft of interesting and contentious issues that BigMedia companies like ours continue to feel their way around. We chew over many of them every day -- and clearly, still more mastication is in order.

The bully pulpit of Slashdot certainly garnered my undivided attention this evening, but these are precisely the sorts of situations that make my job interesting (if not always relaxing). And yes, I think the issues they reflect are well worth exploring editorially.

Matthew Rothenberg
Executive editor
Ziff Davis Internet
http://blog.ziffdavis.com/rothenberg

Moderation (OT)

[Beige Tangerine]

Somehow I find this interesting:

Current moderation of first post (poorly spaced): 100% Informative.

Current moderation of second post (spacing fixed): 70% Interesting, 30% Informative.

I'm not sure that the sample size is really large enough to draw any conclusions, but still... Does

adding spacing

to your posts make

them

interesting (or, conversely, less informative)?

Re:Boss of eWEEK.com here ...

[MatthewRothenberg]

It sounds like I might have gotten some of the circumstances wrong in my haste to respond here.

JKendrick: Want to e-mail me privately at matthew_rothenberg@ziffdavis.com -- maybe with a phone # -- so I can give you a call? I'm playing catch-up on this situation myself and would like your perspective ... Looks like my Sunday night's shot already, so it'd be prime time to sort this out! :-)

Matthew Rothenberg
Executive editor
Ziff Davis Internet

Re:Blogs

[MatthewRothenberg]

I second that emotion ... At least, it's my M.O. when fielding correspondence from readers.

Pharmboy: Thanks for the reasoned response. I don't have all the facts yet, either -- although I assure you, that's Priority One tomorrow morning!

Matthew Rothenberg
Executive editor
Ziff Davis Internet
http://blog.ziffdavis.com/rothenberg

the big legal dogs

[sdedeo]

First off, it is misleading to call this a "warning": the letter was, according to the site admin "pretty much 'cease and desist' or we will come after you." That's a threat.

Wonderful to know how easy it is for lawyers to make up these letters. They mean nothing and are written as easily as ordinary people burn toast -- but they can sure intimidate. For those willing to give Ziff Davis a pass, I wonder if the Pocket site admins are willing to post the content of the e-mails they received? Perhaps you'd feel a little differently about "legal mistakes" when you see what they're really like.

It's ridiculous that companies have such power; were it not for slashdot, I wonder if Ziff Davis would have done a thing after the fact? The mere fact that Ziff Davis employees can fire off a letter that can effectively force sites to censor themselves should be a wake up call to folks everywhere.

Re:Is this really a big deal?

[Reziac]

Has anyone with good knowledge of the relevant laws worked up a chunk of legal boilerplate that folk so-threatened could use for such situations? Seems to me that would save a lot of worry and acrimony.