tag:,2009:/1/tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447- 2009-10-30T14:53:27Z Comments for Copyright and Web Content - Practical Solutions Movable Type 4.23-en tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447 2005-06-07T17:35:02Z 2007-12-16T23:15:44Z Copyright and Web Content - Practical Solutions My posts about RSS Ripoff Merchants stirred up a lot of controversy and, somewhat surprisingly, it seems I've come out of it as The Bad Guy. I kind of feel like Lars Ulrich of Metellica in the Napster case - defender of artists rights :-) Anyhow, I wanted my posts to specifically address the issue... Richard MacManus http://www.readwriteweb.com My posts about RSS Ripoff Merchants stirred up a lot of controversy and, somewhat surprisingly, it seems I've come out of it as The Bad Guy. I kind of feel like Lars Ulrich of Metellica in the Napster case - defender of artists rights :-)

Anyhow, I wanted my posts to specifically address the issue of software like SuperFeedSystem - which encourages people to take other peoples RSS feeds and use them on their own websites for profit. However that issue got lost in the bigger picture and many people wanted to take me to task for the fact I've got a copyright on my RSS feed - and my Web content in general.

So... let's talk about that then. Quite frankly I would love to have a Creative Commons license on both my weblog and my RSS feed. I was looking at Creative Commons again this morning and I'm just about ready to sign up.

But there's one thing holding me back - I'm not sure that the CC licences will protect me from SuperFeedSystem and its kind. Say I use the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license, which is (according to the Creative Commons website) "the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution". Will that license prevent someone using SuperFeedSystem to copy my entire RSS feed onto their own website? Let's go through it:

1. "Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor."

- if they attribute me and link to my site, OK they're fine.

2. "Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes."

- this is probably the crux of the issue, for me anyway. If they run ads around my content, then they're probably contravening my CC license - correct? But what if they don't run any ads around my content, but are just using my content to gain Google juice - is *that* contravening my CC licence? What if they are just using my content in order to have a "site that has what [customers] want and looks believable" (a quote from SuperFeedSystem's homepage) - is that counted as non-commercial?

3. "No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work."

- OK that's pretty clearcut (and believe it or not, I'd like to eventually open up my work to derivatives).

In summary: I want to go Creative Commons - so help me out please. Do you think the above license protects me from SuperFeedSystem and its kind? Whether or not you agree with my point of view on SuperFeedSystem is irrelevant - in *this* post ;-) The fact of the matter is I don't want someone re-using the bulk of my content on their own website for commercial means. Is a CC license the answer for me and others like me (and surely I'm not alone in this)?

So here's where I invite you all to pile in and kick the shit out of me, I guess. But can I request one thing: please give me *practical* solutions and don't get carried away with philosophy ;-) Also I'd appreciate it if you assume that I'm not talking about aggregators and search engines (because I'm not) - just humour me on that one, OK? :-)

]]> tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447-comment:35973 Comment from Michal Migurski on 2005-06-07 Michal Migurski http://mike.teczno.com Sure sounds like it does. You're right that the commercial clause is the kicker, but it sounds like you're covered: all three hypothetical sites (ad revenue, googlejuice, and customer believability) are fundamentally commercial in nature.

A more difficult case study would be a site such as BoingBoing. They started putting in ads to cover hosting expenses, but now feature so much advertising that it's difficult to tell if the advertising tail is wagging the net-humor dog.

]]> 2005-06-07T19:06:37Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447-comment:35974 Comment from James Snell on 2005-06-07 James Snell http://www.snellspace.com If they are using your posts to drive up their Google juice in order to attract more visitors so that their ad revenue can go up then yes, they are violating your CC No-Commercial-Use clause AND they are violating Google's terms of service. It is also entirely possible that the software packages you are talking about are in violation of the DCMA.

]]> 2005-06-07T19:27:42Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447-comment:35975 Comment from James Snell on 2005-06-07 James Snell Sorry, that's DMCA not DCMA.

]]> 2005-06-07T19:28:16Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447-comment:35976 Comment from Michal Migurski on 2005-06-07 Michal Migurski http://mike.teczno.com James - explain the DMCA bit. My understanding of this law is that it confuses container and content - does it add new stipulations to copyright law that aren't implementation- or sentencing-related?

]]> 2005-06-07T19:30:26Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447-comment:35977 Comment from Alex Barnett on 2005-06-07 Alex Barnett http://blogs.msdn.com/alexbarn/ How about this bit from the licence you are considering, but don't mention above:

"For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work."

Does this mean I'd have to call this out (and link to the CC page presumably) if I quoted in you in whole? What about in part only.?

And if you answer 'no' is that waiver only applicable to me - because you, as the copyright owner, had given me (only) permission (the related clause reads: "Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.").

]]> 2005-06-07T22:51:03Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447-comment:35978 Comment from Richard MacManus on 2005-06-07 Richard MacManus http://www.readwriteweb.com I notice that all 6 of the CC licenses seem to have that wording: "For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it *seems* to relate to 4a) of the legalese page: "You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this License, and You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform."

As to how that relates to quoting or extracts from a webpage or RSS feed, I'm not sure. Anyone know?

]]> 2005-06-07T23:36:47Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447-comment:35979 Comment from W.B. McNamara on 2005-06-08 W.B. McNamara http://seamonkeyrodeo.blogspot.com I've been thinking about some of the same issues, particularly after you started this discussion, and ended up going with the creative commons approach as a first step (see http://seamonkeyrodeo.blogspot.com/2005/06/
rss-ripoff-merchants-creative-commons.html).

As I said in the post, applying a CC license to a blog at least makes it explicitly clear that the author is placing limitations on use/republishing of their content. That may not (will not) actually prevent people from misusing that content, but...well, to neatly summarize my long-ish post, "it's better than nothing."

The other interesting possibility that comes from applying a CC license to a feed is that it makes it theoretically possible that the developers of software like SuperFeedSystem could programmatically exclude CC non-commercial licensed content from their harvesting...again, doesn't seem likely that they *will* do so, but it becomes possible when you make your terms of use explicit in a known, public format like CC.

]]> 2005-06-08T07:57:36Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4447-comment:35980 Comment from Richard MacManus on 2005-06-08 Richard MacManus http://www.readwriteweb.com That's an excellent point Whitney. I especially like how you framed it as "common sense" as a community of bloggers. I've pretty much decided to go with CC too. I guess any and every copyright license has its hassles, but at least with CC everyone pretty much knows where they stand.

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