Comments on: The Gatehouse Settlement & RSS Scraping

By: Death of RSS Endangers Our Open Internet

Death of RSS Endangers Our Open Internet — Wed, 11 May 2011 08:40:55 +0000

[...] RSS came with its own set of problems. For content creators, it enabled scraping and other forms of content theft, kept visitors off the site and discouraged discussion on posts. For readers, though it enabled [...]

By: The Internet Manifesto - SmartPlanet

The Internet Manifesto - SmartPlanet — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:14:03 +0000

[...] A case in point. Last December Gatehouse Media, a small newspaper publisher, sued The New York Times Co., a big one, over its use of headlines and lead sentences to Gatehouse content on The Boston Globe site. After a month the Times caved. [...]

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:48:05 +0000

Once again, I'll refer you to this link: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/08/29/why-r.....

By: Rock

Rock — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:59:10 +0000

If you have an rss enabled site… it's not plagiarism for someone to get and post your feed.If you don't like a TV Show, turn the channel. If you don't want to be syndicated… don't allow real simple syndication.Duh.

By: scot hacker’s foobar blog » Who Owns Your RSS?

scot hacker’s foobar blog » Who Owns Your RSS? — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 02:19:24 +0000

[...] PlagiarismToday sums up the case: It was a compromise settlement, as most are, but one can not help but feel that GateHouse just managed to bully one of the largest and most prestigious new organizations in the world. [...]

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:42:00 +0000

It's a real interesting problem. With text an aggregator can limit the number of words they display and, at the very least, make a strong fair use argument. Sure, they aren't adding any serious commentary, but they can argue that their use of the content is so slight and the harm so small that they should be allowed.

With photos, it is different. They can't take the first fifty pixels of an image and get anything useful (do I smell a new art project?). So, by taking the whole of the image they really are throwing any potential fair use argument out the window and, if the image is hotlinked, they're adding some computer misuse issues in as well.

Honestly, if an aggregator is repurposing your images, I'd ask them nicely to stop and, if they fail, start firing DMCA notices. It's a bit crude but it is both your bandwidth and your work.

Just my two cents!

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:42:00 +0000

It’s a real interesting problem. With text an aggregator can limit the number of words they display and, at the very least, make a strong fair use argument. Sure, they aren’t adding any serious commentary, but they can argue that their use of the content is so slight and the harm so small that they should be allowed.

With photos, it is different. They can’t take the first fifty pixels of an image and get anything useful (do I smell a new art project?). So, by taking the whole of the image they really are throwing any potential fair use argument out the window and, if the image is hotlinked, they’re adding some computer misuse issues in as well.

Honestly, if an aggregator is repurposing your images, I’d ask them nicely to stop and, if they fail, start firing DMCA notices. It’s a bit crude but it is both your bandwidth and your work.

Just my two cents!

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:33:00 +0000

It is worth noting that the GateHouse case did NOT deal with RSS scraping. All the NYT sites were doing was looking at the RSS feed, pulling the headline and linking it to the original article in a widget on the side. The company was not taking any actual content from GateHouse, save perhaps a 12-word snippet in some cases.

I agree wholesale that you should not allow spammers scrapers others to use your content without attribution, that is what the whole site is about. Furthermore, I don't think others should do it even with attribution unless the content has been licensed correctly.

This wasn't a case of content theft in the traditional sense, just aggregated linking. Though GateHouse was likely within their rights, it is questionable that they would sue someone who is driving them traffic…

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:33:00 +0000

I agree wholesale that you should not allow spammers scrapers others to use your content without attribution, that is what the whole site is about. Furthermore, I don’t think others should do it even with attribution unless the content has been licensed correctly.

This wasn’t a case of content theft in the traditional sense, just aggregated linking. Though GateHouse was likely within their rights, it is questionable that they would sue someone who is driving them traffic…

By: cybele

cybele — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:31:00 +0000

I’ve gone round and round with some sites that like to republish a digest feed of my blog (especially with photos). I get there’s a fair use argument for commentary … but without editorial oversight it’s completely lost.

I mention this because I found this site not long ago: thefindbuzz.com which seems to be “digesting” my site with photos. Sure it’s attributed, no it’s not the whole post and it does link back. But it also gets tagged up with lots of shopping links and basically, it’s not theirs.