As I said in the article, my concern with these sites has less to do with copyright and more to do with the spam issue. The site I linked to sent me at least two trackbacks and those were just the ones that got through my spam filters.

In terms of copyright infringement, they aren’t horrible, but what they spawn is pretty disgusting.

Maria,

I couldn’t have said it better myself to be honest. The reason I didn’t comment sooner was I didn’t know what I could add.

To jump in the API chain problem, it’s something I’m going to cover soon. I touched on it briefly a while back when discussing spam blogs that escape FeedBurner, but you are right it requires more in depth coverage. I’m writing some friends now.

Hope that you are well!

As I said in the article, my concern with these sites has less to do with copyright and more to do with the spam issue. The site I linked to sent me at least two trackbacks and those were just the ones that got through my spam filters.

In terms of copyright infringement, they aren’t horrible, but what they spawn is pretty disgusting.

Maria,

I couldn’t have said it better myself to be honest. The reason I didn’t comment sooner was I didn’t know what I could add.

To jump in the API chain problem, it’s something I’m going to cover soon. I touched on it briefly a while back when discussing spam blogs that escape FeedBurner, but you are right it requires more in depth coverage. I’m writing some friends now.

Hope that you are well!

For instance, Flickr allows people to use their API and all public content posted on the site, but they also allow users an option to exclude their content from such API. Not the same with feeds: I have no way of excluding my content from Flickr’s public feeds, or Technorati feeds.

I said “[but] the fragment they are using is so small, and they link back to me” and “I don’t like to be included in aggregated content used for commercial purposes“.

As I said, and Jonathan points out, this use is not terrible enough to make me take the same actions I would take with outright plagiarism. But that’s exactly what Jonathan is talking about on this article.

I have found the full text of one of my posts reproduced without my permission on a different web site, and I have not screamed or done anything about it because that site is actually using my content to add value: They are educating consumers on how bad a certain company is. And they do NOT generate any ad revenue with such content.

On the other hand, the small blog you defend so passionately is not adding any value at all. They are supposedly aggregating content related to “English” and my post is not remotely close to that. So, it’s clear that they are simply aggregating content indiscriminately solely for the purpose of generating ad revenue… Not terribly wrong, but wrong nonetheless.

Hope that helps.

For instance, Flickr allows people to use their API and all public content posted on the site, but they also allow users an option to exclude their content from such API. Not the same with feeds: I have no way of excluding my content from Flickr’s public feeds, or Technorati feeds.

I said “[but] the fragment they are using is so small, and they link back to me” and “I don’t like to be included in aggregated content used for commercial purposes“.

As I said, and Jonathan points out, this use is not terrible enough to make me take the same actions I would take with outright plagiarism. But that’s exactly what Jonathan is talking about on this article.

I have found the full text of one of my posts reproduced without my permission on a different web site, and I have not screamed or done anything about it because that site is actually using my content to add value: They are educating consumers on how bad a certain company is. And they do NOT generate any ad revenue with such content.

On the other hand, the small blog you defend so passionately is not adding any value at all. They are supposedly aggregating content related to “English” and my post is not remotely close to that. So, it’s clear that they are simply aggregating content indiscriminately solely for the purpose of generating ad revenue… Not terribly wrong, but wrong nonetheless.

Hope that helps.

They seem to be aggregating not from my feed, but from Technorati’s tag feeds which I can’t control. I spent a tremendous amount of time looking for ways how I can opt out of this in Technorati but couldn’t find anything.

How can I contact this site’s owners and ask them to get me off their list and stop grabbing my content if they’re getting it from Technorati?