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Making Content More Valuable or Stealing Revenue?
TechDirt has an interesting look at the short history of complaints over meta content delivery and traffic generation. Looking at everything from complaints over Google's Print program to RSS companies delivering ads on someone else's content the article begs the question, where should the line be drawn? One of the examples, Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc., even chimed in as one of the first few comments.
Non-commercial depends on how much money you have, how big the business is that provided the content under the license, and whether or not they're bored.
begs for trouble.
As easy as it is to jump on the fair use bandwagon, taking that stance is an uphill battle... if it weren't, this matter would have been settled once and for all long ago. The fact of the matter is, these companies really are making money as a direct result of other people's work, even if they are "adding value" in some way... and are doing so without direct compensation. Whether increased traffic counts as compensation is a fuzzy matter at best. It would be MUCH more effective for the really popular news aggregators and so forth to whole-heartedly comply with those content-producers that are upset about this.... simply remove the offending material. One might argue that this wouldn't work if every one of these content-producers made the same requests, but I am pretty sure that most would not... after all, there is an undeniable benefit these producers receive from these services, whether it is direct enough to count legally or not.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Maybe a slash coder could add something to red-flag Slashdot editors when the phrase "begs the question" appears in a summary?
http://begthequestion.info/
http://www.glasswings.com/
A lot of money has been invested in creating messages to be disseminated across the 'Net. Additional money has bee invested in making these messages attractive, and in enhancing the reputation of the creators and authors. Now some sleazeball desseminates the message at a lower tier, and packs it with adds, thus diminishing the value of the original investment on one hand, and possibly marginally increasing the value on the other. I can see the points on both sides. Unfortunately, once the vehicle has left the showroom it gets scratches.
Hmmm... Suppose Bob takes a great picture of a pretty girl in a bikini and uses it to promote his photography. Suppose a notorious porn site uses only the headshot portion and even provides a link back to Bob's site.
On the other hand, suppose a site that is a directory for photographers uses Bob's picture to provide a link to his photography site.
Somehow I would think it's appropriate for Bob to be able to get the picture removed from the site that makes him look like a pornographer, but that means he also has the right to get it removed from the directory if he wishes.
Bob should have the right to control his picture, but unfortunately, it has left the showroom.
Keep in mind, we have a different situation if one or the other downstream sites has purchased the right to use the picture as they see fit.
Hmmm. If I purchase a print of Bob's picture, do I have the right to cut it up, paint over it and make derivative art? (Maybe, it depends on my written agreement with Bob.) I certainly have the right to take a picture of it and keep it in my insurance records to record my household goods. Do I have a right to make copies and give it to my friends, even if some of them actually go out and buy signed print later on? (That would be enhancing the value, wouldn't it?) If I don't charge for it, it's not a commercial venture, right?
Sorry, folks, but I think the author should retain the rights.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
What? Why should content aggregators (or anyone) have to take proactive steps to avoid stepping on people's toes when they put it online in syndicated RSS feeds, which have the effective purpose of being aggregated?
If they were really so upset over having their content show up in other places on the interwebs, my question is, why don't the content producers remove the offending material? After all, that would be the most immediate and effective action if you don't want people 'stealing' your revenue.
The tendency to litigate indicates to me that the outrage is simply faked- they're after money like every other trigger-happy lawyer.
groupthink: It's good for self-esteem.
This analogy falls apart sooner than you state, though. The RSS feed is already stripped down to content only. If the radio station were somehow putting out a separate stream of nothing but the music, without chatter or ads, that would be equivalent to an RSS feed.
RSS feeds don't currently match existing models. In the publishing model, to get reprint rights for a print article, you go to the rights holder and pay for a license. There's a gate-keeping function in place at which the rights holder can collect revenue.
In the broadcast model, the ads and source ID are inserted directly into the stream. The equivalent of a republisher in this model would be a restaurant or retail store that replays that stream in their establishment. Technically, they're supposed to pay a license fee to do so, such as when a sports bar shows events. There's no gate-keeping function, but then again, the ads are inserted into the stream.
If content producers want to match those models, they'll have to match the mechanism of those models. They can either insert text-based, editorial-style ads directly into the stream (similar to "sponsored results" in search engine results), or they can use a feed mechanism that includes authentication to provide some kind of gate-keeping function at which revenue can be collected for subscriptions.
Outside of those solutions, forget it. The Internet will continue to do what the Internet does. If you put a free, unrestricted feed of your content out there, it's going to be out there. If you want the traffic to come to your site, limit your feed to "teaser" portions of the articles including a linkback to the original. Otherwise, just accept it. "You can't stop the signal, Mal."
Sorry, I'm a writer. That makes you raw material.
[blockquote]the point is, that a company like Google and its google of lawyers gets away with murder... if I started a company today that jsut copied books, videos and websites and displayed then on my URL... there would be a 3 second trial that would result in my hanging.[/blockquote]
I just bought myself a scanner. I'm going to get every book I can lay my hands on, and scan them into my computer system in it's entirety. Then I'm gonna open a kiosk downtown and, for the grand price of $1.99, I'm going to let anybody who wants to do a search on titles, authors, phrases - whatever they want.
When they get a match, my system will print out a list of all the stores in town that will sell them the book in question - and I'll even throw in the price of the book into the printout.
Now -just how bloody long do you think it will take for EVERY BOOKSTORE IN TOWN to be clamoring after me to make sure that I have their entire up-to-date pricelist?
About 30 seconds, max. Becuase I'm NOT "stealing their revenue". I'm NOT making money by illegally copying their content. I'm providing a service - and that service ENHANCES the value of their business, and will increase their sales.
The only judge what would even think about convicting me would be the one who just received the FOAD letter from the 37th publisher refusing to publish the gripping courtroom drama he's been writing since collage.