Making Content More Valuable or Stealing Revenue? 78
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.
I'm gonna sue Mozilla (Score:4, Funny)
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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
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I know some networks charge for TV guide information and TV guides make money from advertising (and even subscriptions). In a radio sense it would be like having a station that lists what song other stations are playing to help you find the one t
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Re:I'm gonna sue Mozilla (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
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However, what if some third-party radio station starts recording the music that other stations are playing, organizing it, then playing it over the air without the original radio station's ads, but with it's own ads.
Your analogy makes no sense at all. No one would ever do it. Why not compare the use of RSS to something like a TIVO. It gathers content from different stations, allows you to remove ads from the original content, and could be used to deliver ads itself to make the producers of the TIVO mo
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I don't work that much with meta data, but can't you add a robot.txt file to keep those aggragators from gathering your content?
The precedent is touchy at best if we lay the responsibility on those organizing the information. If they have to check with every source they gather information from, we are
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I wonder how the law suits would shake out if let say Google REFUSED to index someones content or RSS feed.
People complain that the aggrigator is making money of their content. I would argue that th
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BY-NC (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the question I've always had with creative commons: just what counts as non-commercial? If I take a BY-NC image off flickr [flickr.com], and want to use it in my blog [wellingtongrey.net], is that OK? What if I have google ads on my blog? Is that still OK? Does it make any difference if I'm actually making a profit or not? I've gone so far as to email some of the CC lawyers about this issue, and there seems to be no clear answer.
-Grey
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The cynic in me says they provided no clear answers to you on purpose. If they laid out some clear guidelines that would keep you out of trouble, you would follow them and never need their services. They are much more interested in telling you what to do when it's too late and they're tracking billable hours on your dime.
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Is it commercial to look at something and then use that as the basis of a business decision? Possibly, but who's going to sue? The creator probably isn't going to find out, if they do, they probably won't care too much, if they do, they probably won't sue, and if they do, they'll probably not win a vast payout. It's a low risk violation. If I take the content, and sell it, then it's clear and obvious violation of the terms. The creator co
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Unless you're the one person in a million selected by the RIAA, of course.
Yeah well in another article (Score:2)
Partly this is what I ment. Wouldn't it be so much easier if we just didn't have to put up with all this copyright mess (because frankly, most of these services are good things to exist)?
Content == Information. Someone else's information? That is only a valid phrase if noone else has that information. AKA, content creators should be only compensated for that and not given distribution rights afterwards.
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I wonder if they should even be compensated at all. Of course, the theory behind copyright is that we want more content, and therefore, we offer a financial incentive to produce it.
However, I can tell you that most of the content I produce, as well as most of the content I use, are produc
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Take into consideration, though, the cost of production (money and time) of that particular content, as well as the quality of said produced content.
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Copyright doesn't offer a financial incentive, it offers control over distribution. Of course, many
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I think the bigger issue is still the concept of 'owning' an idea. Most economic activities - including things like licenses, etc. - are based on the idea of scarcity. I'm still not convinced that ideas are scarce goods, and therefore all the conventional economic thought doesn't really apply.
What are, to some extent, scarce are the idea producers. The thing that scares "the industry" is that it is now with unprecedented ease that ideas can be developed and disseminated; the 'idea producer' is now not as s
Whoever says "begs the question" on slashdot... (Score:1, Insightful)
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where should the line be drawn? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Sounds like you're daring someone to come up with a DRM system for text content - oh good :(
Reminds me of some of the annoying PDF API documents i have to work with, where some bright spark has decided to protect there copyright by disabling copy and paste (yes, this can be done in Acrobat Reader). It's extremely annoying when you just want to copy and paste a long function prototype into your code.
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Well, some uses are prohibited by law (often copyright law). So they could sue you and win.
Weblogs' Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
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Bloggers (oops sorry
I'm all for full exposure, specially now that the search engines have become semi clever in figuring out who the original author is and ensuring that when someone searches for a relevant term the original article shows up (often tha
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No, it raises the question (Score:3, Insightful)
http://begthequestion.info/ [begthequestion.info]
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Doesn't anybody EVER learn? (Score:1, Offtopic)
It shows just how little of the forum discussions people submitting these stories read, either that or they're just doing it as a joke now.
Or, they could just be really fucking dumb.
It's almost as if the people submitting the s
Association is important. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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That's really what it comes down to here, IMO. Just because it's on the 'net doesn't mean you can do what-the-hell-you-like with it. As always, fair use is still fair use, and republishing is still republishing - blogger with ads, RSS, or whatever.
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I agree. And I also believe that those rights should never extend beyond 27 years or the death of the author. I also believe that no corporate entity should hold or maintain exclusive right to any copyrighted work.
You can easily guess how popular those feelings are in the current US congress (and many other governments in the world, for that matter).
There's no line (Score:2)
There's no line: there are business models, with different objectives and different strategies. There's different perceptions, and different fears.
Ultimately, if there IS a line, it's different for every single person/company and will change for every product in time due to a number of factors, even someone's current mood.
There's no point guessing, no one is THAT smart. Just let things balance our and wherever it goes, it goes.
The more productive thinki
Begging the question (Score:1)
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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
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It's obviously stealing (Score:5, Funny)
It's obviously stealing revenue. I mean, I've got over $200,000,000.00 in a box at home that I've saved (I mean, stolen) because of piracy. All those media cartels are right: pirates have collectively stolen trillions of dollars from them over the past few decades. Check under your beds; you'll probably find a big box of money like I did.
I think it works like this:
Try it (not that I am advocating stealing, mind you). It's amazing! And all this money is coming straight out of the bank accounts of various media cartels. I think it has something to do with that "voodoo economics" I heard about a few years back.
I don't know why it doesn't work when you steal shows or movies over the TV, or music over the radio. Maybe because it's older technology and the media cartels put anti-theft technology in it, and with computers they have yet to do so because that's newer technology.
Oh, crap. I just thought of something. I just posted this on Slashdot! Now thousands of people will be stealing it from me! That's what I get for posting my two cents worth of intellectual property. :(
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Don't worry, for each person who steals your ideas, they will only get 2 cents. Not worth the time unless someone creates a botnet to steal your idea enmass to spam it:
----
To: luser@slashdot.org
From: bettysue@comcast.net
Lo0king f0r a w ay to mak e more mone y?
Triy pirat ing! Make upt o $60,00 a yea r! Vis it n0w for you're m ore inf0!
http://it.goecities.com/somelamer666
The yellow dog was found to be absurd.
I'm begging you to stop using "begs the question" (Score:4, Informative)
Or, to put in in more
Re:I'm begging you to stop using "begs the questio (Score:2)
Look, language changes over time. "Begs the question" now means "Leads one naturally to ask the question". "Moot" means "NOT worthy of discussion or debate". "Inflammable" means "flammable". Accept it.
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Take them at their word (Score:1)
More techdirt (Score:1, Offtopic)