News Aggregation Threatened? I'm Gulping Right Now

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyid=2006-01-31T194017Z_01_L31724094_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-NEWSPAPERS-GOOGLE.xml&rpc=22' target='_blank'>http://today.reuters.com/news/newsa...OGLE.xml&rpc=22</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers, whose members include dozens of national newspaper trade bodies, said it is exploring ways to "challenge the exploitation of content by search engines without fair compensation to copyright owners." Web sites like Google and its specialized Google News service automatically pull in headlines, photos and short excerpts of articles from thousands of news sources, linking back to the publishers' own site. Google News does not currently carry advertising. "They're building a new medium on the backs of our industry, without paying for any of the content," Ali Rahnema, managing director of the association, told Reuters in an interview. "The news aggregators are taking headlines, photos, sometimes the first three lines of an article -- it's for the courts to decide whether that's a copyright violation or not."</i><br /><br />This is completely off topic, but it's important to anyone that reads this site, or indeed many of the sites out there that follow our posting patterns: quote, link, reaction. I'll be watching the results of this very carefully. Part of me thinks that this is only happening because Google now has very deep pockets, but let's say in a worst-case scenario a judgment is issued that says quoting text and taking an image from another Web page on the 'Net is determined to be illegal...it would radically alter the landscape of the Web.<br /><br />This reminds of a similar issue back in 2004 where <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/08/237214&tid=188&tid=17">Ziff Davis</a> went after <a href="http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:uAFlbGVdxGYJ:67.15.78.45/modules.php%3Fname%3DForums%26file%3Dviewtopic%26p%3D6801+barry+shilmover+ziff-davis&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a">Pocket PC Tools</a> (now defunct) for essentially the same reason. Ziff Davis eventually backed off under public pressure, but it was a bit chilling to see that they didn't grasp that Pocket PC Tools was helping by driving traffic to their articles. Let's hope Google wins this one for all of us little guys as well!

[cuteseal]

Gulp... some CMSs and php scripts have built in RSS aggregators too. One that I've used is Drupal (http://www.drupal.org), which allows you to configure a number of RSS sources, which then featches and caches and displayes them all on one page.

In fact, my site, Shuttertalk (http://www.shuttertalk.com) uses an open source php script which does the same thing, which I use for digital photography news.

I justify it as providing a service to my readers by allowing them to see the latest goss on one page, instead of having to visit six sites every day. If they want to read more, they jump to the originating website and see the full article. I don't make any pretenses about owning the content - there's a big heading saying "Digital Photography News Feeds on the Web".

I'll be following this one with interest....

[heliod]

I think that they are not after what we (you guys and me as well) do.

They are more against the aggregators that just republish their content as part of a search service. Something like the google customized page in which you can place the RSS feed of everybody.

The results are the same. It drives movement to their sites. But sometimes these guys just fear that many users are just busy reading the beginning of the stories instead of going there for the full content.

[PDANEWBIE]

I think as long as a valid link to the original content is provided this shouldn't be an issue. Its when things get ripped out of one page and then distributed without any type of recognition is what should be looked into.

I have to wonder how far and granular they are going to take it?

[jlc, just jlc]

They're getting concerned about dropping reveunes

They're losing readership for their print addiotions which means less ad money and see online as the way to boost revenue - and will try to get money any way they can. They probably want to negotiate a flat fee to act as a clipping service; plus the see Google as a threat to their future as it expands beyond search (GoogleNews anyone?).

What Google should do is blackout all of their memeber sites for a week - if that drops hits significantly they may rethink their position. It's the online version fo sending all your ships to see for w few weeks when the locals complain too much aboutr sailors - let tehm feel a hit to theirwallet and the hearts and minds soon follow.

[Phillip Dyson]

As far back as I can remember (my memories begin to loose resolution around grade 8) quote other sources has always been legal as long as you provide suffient acknowledgements.

Hopefully this kind of issue will be dealt with on a case by case basis. I believe there is certainly a way to provide the service that ThoughtsMedia provides and be within acceptable legal parameters. But on the flipside, there's also a point where an aggregator service goes too far.

Besides, the exerpts that ThoughtsMedia clip always seem like "teaser" and not the summation of the matter. And I mean teasers in a good way.

[Ken Mattern]

It sounds like fair use to me. Google, for example, does not do more than quote the first two or three lines of one article and then links directly to it. Beneath that is a link to all similar articles. Because it does link directly I can only see that it benefits the news source. I have a limited time at lunch to scan the news. Google News is always where I look for the widest variety of coverage.

Sometimes I can not read the entire on-line article bewcause I have to "join" a news service, or subscribe. No thanks to that. Ii that case who is cutting whose nose off to spite whose face? Certainly not Google.

Ken

[karen]

But Goggle does copy photographs, and that's not right if they are doing it without permission.

And if they are copying and storing more than a Fair Use amount of property, that would be wrong, too.

For instance, what if I started a new website and I copied the first two paragraphs of ever post and every article here at PPCThoughts? How would Jason feel about all that work being used without his permission and without compensation? What if I were able to afford a bigger, better, shinier server farm to host all this content, so that traffic was drawn away from PPCT to my servers and Jason lost substantial revenue because he lost all the browsing eyeballs?

I'm not in favour of draconian copyright protections, but I always saw fair use as more of an ad hoc usage, not an entire business model for copying thousands of paragraphs and photographs every minute.

K

[Ken Mattern]

Karen,

I don't see Google doing that. The headline points directly to the source and the photo points to another source. You can not get enough information from the few words Google does post to get more than an idea of whether you want to read the article or not. That fits my description of fair use.

KJ

[Jason Dunn]

What if I were able to afford a bigger, better, shinier server farm to host all this content, so that traffic was drawn away from PPCT to my servers and Jason lost substantial revenue because he lost all the browsing eyeballs?

But if you put me out of business with your Pocket PC Thoughts clone site, you'd have nothing to quote when I was gone. ;-) Relationships like this are symbiotic, not parasitic. I have a good example of a parasitic content cloner though that I'll put in the front page soon.

Besides, if it's a quote + link, that means traffic for the site. When we've been featured on the Google News homepage, it's meant 10,000+ extra visitors on a good day. These companies should be thanking Google, not attacking them.

[whydidnt]

Besides, if it's a quote + link, that means traffic for the site. When we've been featured on the Google News homepage, it's meant 10,000+ extra visitors on a good day. These companies should be thanking Google, not attacking them.

Unfortunately, much like was discussed re: Verizon's practices a few days back - Many Newspaper companies don't get it. They are stuck trying to protect their old, near monopolistic business model where everyone had to pay $.50 to read the news, and adverstisers paid even more for what really was a limited reach. Rather than understanding the new market is one where people have feedom of choice on where to get their news, they try to put up a wall around their content and charge everyone that wants to look at it. They don't seem to be able to grasp that Google is essentially providng free adversting with links back to their content.

I believe Google has already allowed some news organizations to "opt out" of their aggregation service. It would be interesting to see how much those organization's traffic changed after they made this decision, and if they regretted it or not (not that they would be likely to admit it).

[JonathanWardRogers]

If people weren't allowed to reference other content, it wouldn't really be a world wide web then, would it?

So will this be limited only to automatic aggregation, or do you think they'll go after digg and the like next?

[ctmagnus]

My issue with the way things currently work vs how they will work in the future is as follows:

A few months ago, I was looking for (read: drastically required) a specific download. A google search provided thousands of results, all blogs, but all those blogs ultimately pointed back to one source. The problem is that, that one source was doa. So all those thousands of blogs (I actually gave up after the first 12 or so pages) all linked to a dead site. What I would like to see is for one or two bloggers to take the initiative to mirror a file they're discussing, rather than simply linking to the source file. Like in the good old days, when TuCows, Download.com, and everyone else hosted copies of freeware files (which this was).

[Jason Dunn]

What I would like to see is for one or two bloggers to take the initiative to mirror a file they're discussing, rather than simply linking to the source file. Like in the good old days, when TuCows, Download.com, and everyone else hosted copies of freeware files (which this was).

Unlikely to happen - the legal liabilities, mostly FUD anyway, of hosting a file who's IP you don't own are scary. No one wants to open themselves up to something like that, so they just link to it. I agree it would be nice, but probaby not. :?

[karen]

But if you put me out of business with your Pocket PC Thoughts clone site, you'd have nothing to quote when I was gone. ;-) Relationships like this are symbiotic, not parasitic. I have a good example of a parasitic content cloner though that I'll put in the front page soon.

Besides, if it's a quote + link, that means traffic for the site. When we've been featured on the Google News homepage, it's meant 10,000+ extra visitors on a good day. These companies should be thanking Google, not attacking them.

Ok, let's say that Karen's Stolen PPC Thoughts runs the origional PPCThoughts out of business. Where will all those Thinkers go for great, timely, and and funny PPC Thoughts in the future? Either to Karen's place, which because she actually has no talent in doing this stuff, will die off, too, or someone else's website will aborb the eyeballs and ad revenue.

Of course, if all Karen does is quote a couple of lines for each article and post, then probably PPCT won't go under. But I'm guessing that your viewed ads stats will go way down, as I serve up and read your ads just browsing. If I were browsing another site (Karen's Stolen PPC Thoughts), I'd be browsing THEIR ads.

If I vist your site once a week day, browse 5-10 posts/articles and post a couple of messages, I probably count for, I dunno, maybe 25 ads? If 3/4 of your user base were to do that instead of actually visiting your site, then I'd think you'd be losing out.

Of course, if Karen were to quote 2 paragraphs of eacy post and article, then I'd be even fewer people would get to your site, as many posts here are so short.

I think the fair use thing is better reseved for ad hoc usages, not regular scraping. Just my opinion, not a legal one even. For instance, all those blogs are doing more than just scraping and posting a snippet. For the most part, they offer some commentary, critique, or other value add service, much like your team does here. Imagine how worthless PPCT would be if all you did was snip and paste, with no disucssion or commentary...

Karen

[Stik]

But Goggle does copy photographs, and that's not right if they are doing it without permission.

As noted here...

" We have discovered a massive misappropriation of Perfect 10 images that appear from Google web search and image search. This situation is very serious as consumers can view essentially the entirety of the Perfect 10 library over and over without paying anything by utilizing Google search. Consumers can also see thousands of high quality third party copyrighted images without charge, which makes the situation even more damaging for our company. "

http://chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=2852

Just another thought on this topic. In the case listed above, why didn't the company's webmaster take matters in its own hands? For that matter, why don't newspapers or other publications that have websites ( which implicitly would give others a right to disseminate and distribute the material, imo ) do likewise? There is a means...

http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html#feedfetcher

Am I being too simplistic in this approach of self-censoring one owns content to others :?:

Edit Update

Google Search Violates Copyright

"In what could spell bad news for the use of copyrighted material on the Internet, a US District Court judge, A Howard Matz, has ruled that the free availability of Perfect 10's adult entertainment thumbnail images on Google's image search "likely" amounts to copyright infringement.

Judge Matz has ruled that Google's display of the Perfect 10 thumbnail images likely does not fall within "fair use exemption". Typically, limited use of copyrighted works such as for criticism, comment, news reporting or teaching is legally admissible. "

http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=71508&amp;cat_id=547