Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Ian Betteridge — Tue, 08 May 2007 05:02:38 -0000

A lot of people are losing sight of what copyright is for, here. Copyright exists because it ultimately benefits the public by encouraging original work. It is not an absolute right, one which you might hold even if it does not benefit the rest of us. It's not like, say, the right to life.

Sharing snippits from an RSS feed - a feed which, it should be remembered, an author has explicitly made available - benefits the public far more than it inconveniences the author. It robs no one of income, adds traffic to the author's site, and gives their work valuable publicity. I've discovered half a dozen sites through Scoble's link feed which I now read regularly: without the link blog, I would not have found them, and they would not now be getting any traffic from me.

If you don't want to get into link blogs, stop using full text feeds. It's as simple as that.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Bruce Prochnau — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:43:40 -0000

I agree! RSS is given to see content elsewhere. Those who create RSS feeds of their content are responsible for it being put wherever.
This will come up increasingly as RSS becomes more popular. As a web developer I have been parsing various kinds of feeds including video and photos.

A photographer recently contacted me and said his images on the public Flickr rss feed were copyright and I had no business including them in a Flickr rss feed????

I removed that feed, but also advised him that putting your photos on a public site that includes them in RSS is silly if you don't want them posted anywhere...

Summation: You create the feed and have the ability to have either excerpts or the full feed. An RSS feed can turn up ANYWHERE. Act accordingly, RSS is good for you :)

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Eric Eggertson — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 22:32:17 -0000

"By the way, have you ever talked with the publisher of the NY Times? I have."

Hey, back off on the caffeine, Robert! Don't start talking about yourself in the third person, either, or we'll need to do an intervention. ;-)

Maybe you're both right. Certainly, a lot of blogs whose content you republish benefit from increased traffic, so you're right.

Your blog (and the link blog attached to it) serves a commercial purpose (your career advancement, self-promotion, etc.) and is closely tied to your commercial activities. So maybe Andy's right - it's for a commercial purpose, and you gain a very valuable currency (authority) through your use of others' content.

Just because you're pretty sure you're right doesn't mean you have to curb-stomp the person you're debating with.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

AndyBeard — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 22:21:11 -0000

@ Andy C

If you had read my original post from 2 weeks ago, plus the current one (including all the comments) I think you might determine that I am looking to discuss the situation, and am suggesting giving the owners of RSS feeds a little control over how their generously supplied full content RSS feeds are used.

This is in the interest of RSS users / readers. It is much better to introduce some protocal such that aggregators and sharing features warn a reader before they decide to share content they are not licensed to share.

Your aggregator specifically is actually one step better than Roberts shared content because it only contains an excerpt.

@ Albert Pascual

You are not offering a feed with full contents

@ Robert

Very strange, one of my comments seems to have not appeared. It was definately submitted, because when I attempted to resubmit, the Wordpress system reported that it had been submitted previously.

The message contained an important warning regarding the dangers of taking a Google Reader shared feed and passing it to Feedburner.

Are RSS publishers really unconcerned regarding their viewing figures?

The real readership of http://www.problogger.net/ isn't going down, but the Feedburner stats have dropped from approx 8350 to 7800 in the last couple of weeks.

I am just a concerned citizen, certainly not RSS police

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Andy C — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 15:07:05 -0000

Dear Cathy and Clare

OK. I own up. It's a fair cop. I was foolish. I was stupid. I was misinformed.

I thought I was clever. I thought I had the perfect solution to desktop versus Web based RSS readers versus NetVibes.

I decided to run Gregarius on my hosted server to provide - eek - a (personal) aggregator for my own use to read my favourite feeds from any machine. Anywhere.

No-one else uses it. No-one else knows of its existence. I add feeds. I delete feeds. Feeds are fluid.

However, I blatantly failed ask permission from any blog owner for permission to re-publish their content. Shame on me.

Now I am nervous because I am clean shaven.

Will the 'Andy Beard RSS privacy police' be paying me a visit ?

Worried of London.

PS. And now I have advertised the existence of this aggregator to the InterWeb. Doh !

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Albert Pascual — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 14:00:16 -0000

I love you share the posts, I get so many hits on my RSS around 300 more than normal every time you do that!
Thanks! Please keep doing it!

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Robert Scoble — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 02:53:58 -0000

Duncan: why are you reposting videos from YouTube that you didn't produce IN WHOLE on your blog? http://www.duncanriley.com/...

Isn't this the same thing as me putting a post of yours on my link blog?

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Robert Scoble — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 02:52:28 -0000

Duncan: again, I'm not duplicating people's blogs. I'm using maybe 1/10th of their content. Not gonna get them kicked off of Google. Yes, go ahead and ask Matt Cutts and see what he says.

And when you call my link blog a "splog" it's YOU that is marked as not rational.

RSS stands for SYNDICATION. Sounds like you really are nutty on this one.

But, whatever. Differing views makes the world go round.

Hey, you all work for B5 Media, don't you? You're gaming Google by linking all your blogs together which puts people who don't join a network at a disadvantage. But no one calls YOU on that! Maybe THAT is the reason you don't like linkblogging. It lets the rest of us gain the same traffic advantage that you have by being part of a network. In fact, on your home page you even reprint headlines, but only from those people inside your network. How convenient of you to take advantage of Google that way! I see it now, you just don't want any competition.

You do note that this is Google that's making this reader. I sure would love them to remove some blogs based on my, and other people's, link blogs. Easy to prove and would be disastrous for Google's PR.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Duncan — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 00:55:14 -0000

Stefan> he’s giving credit, i mean it isn’t as if he’s copy and pasting content without citing sources. that would be wrong.

Citing sources doesn't prevent a breach of copyright, and certainly doesn't mean you can republish an entire post Stefan. Certainly a part feed/ extract with link would be acceptable under fair use provisions, but never a full post without permission.

I also noticed in the comments there someone talking about Google and Matt Cutts...I wonder how happy the people your scraping Robert will be when you get them banned or punished from Google for duplicate content? Drop Matt a line, he'll explain how it works.

As for saying that I'm not rational Robert you're right, I thought once you'd left Microsoft you might have joined the real world but it would appear that this isn't the case. You've got a splog that is helping value add to your own personal blog that not only features commercials, but is also a conduit and communications outlet for your own business and commercial interests with Podtech. Just because you don't have ads on that page doesn't make it non-commercial, and if you believe that you deluding yourself, and I mean that with the utmost respect. As for Andy's arguments pertaining to how RSS should be used...well I don't agree with the way he's putting it, but I do agree with what he's trying to say: RSS feeds aren't private as such, but in terms of use they are there on the whole (particularly copyrighted feeds and works) for private use in a feed reader, they certainly aren't there to be republished by you, or your friendly neighborhood spam blogger. Anyhow, could argue this all day, you're not ripping any of my feeds so I'll leave it at that, but certainly I hope you've given Automattic notice that they should expect some DMCA notices in against you in the future.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

samcollins — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 15:35:22 -0000

Seems to me like you are going the Google way Robert. They started scanning all books & gave publishers the option to opt out instead of asking permission first before scanning. That case is still pending, you may wanna look at the outcome of that.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Stefan Constantinescu — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 14:03:13 -0000

posts i would have never seen i have thanks to robert

not to mention that i've found a shit ton of blogs to subscribe to

he's giving credit, i mean it isn't as if he's copy and pasting content without citing sources. that would be wrong.

you're throwing the same arguments the record company throws at 14 year old girls putting videos of themselves on youtube singing their favorite singers song.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Mark Woodman — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 13:10:46 -0000

Robert,

You can also publish your Google Reader shared items as a feed, FeedBurner'ed to make it more user-friendly. Here's how:

http://inkblots.markwoodman...

- Mark

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Robert Scoble — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:50:10 -0000

Andy: >IANAL but believe it is your responsibility to ask specific permission from each feed owner you intend to republish on your linkblog.

No it's not. That's not how the RSS system works. It's worked well for years. It's very easy to opt out of my blog.

You can whine all you want. The system isn't broken and my link blog will go on. I note that not a single person included there has complained. Not a single one.

Why is that?

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Robert Scoble — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:48:03 -0000

David: >>It’s a complete contradiction.

It's very easy. I don't duplicate every post. Spam blogs duplicate every post with an algorithm. I only duplicate the best posts, maybe 1/10th of a blog like TechCrunch, maybe 1/100th of a normal blog that I subscribe to. Keep in mind I only subscribe to a small subset of blogs too -- ones that have very high signal to noise ratios.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

colin — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:05:55 -0000

Copyright infringement can exist whether the perpetrator is aware of it or not. There is no distinction for person vs commercial in terms of whether an infringement has occured, but there is likely a difference in the level of prosecution and consequences that may follow.

People who see an example may well follow it (passing into the illegal zone) and then subsequently run over the second (albeit vague) line (higher consequences) because they didn't know they crossed the first line.

I'm not seeing your defense here and I think you need to take back your committment to something which (when considering the above) could seem quite irresponsible in your position as a leader, despite the perceived benefits or assumptions around shared knowledge. There's also the increasing Positive (not in the good sense) Externality (economics terms) of blogs as a 'knowledge spillover', i.e. the fact that they act as a Public Good and the authors of that content are not being subsidised to compensate.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

David Dalka — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 10:03:03 -0000

Maybe the next time you go to Google you can ask them to sort out how they have one division thzt considers your "reader blog" duplicate content that can be harmful to a source blog while there is another division that encourages you to use a "reader blog" in this manner. It's a complete contradiction.

Make sure you get Cutts and the other team in the same place at the same time - now this is good content - in fact, maybe you should have me conduct the interview!

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

AndyBeard — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 07:39:25 -0000

Simple scenario

I thought you might be interested in this article I just read...

What do you think?

Now that post might be read by noone, or it might get 50 comments which the original author might want to respond to.
Trackback is the method of notifiction that it exists. It is fair and propper use.

You are suggesting I could legally scrape 10% of all the content held in the NY Times historical database, and not be prosecuted?

It is just one website after all.

That is potentially millions of articles

And I could do it in partnership with 10 friends. I could have the whole of their content split over 10 interlinked domains?

Wow!

Maybe I do know more about copyright law than you.

Darren hasn't lost subscribers, he has lost the ability to track (a percentage of)his subscribers, as the number showing up on his feed stats has reduced.
Take a look inside Feedburner...

From the Google description: Feedfetcher is how Google grabs RSS or Atom feeds when users choose to add them to their Google homepage. Feedfetcher collects and periodically refreshes these user-initiated feeds, but does not index them in Blog Search or Google's other search services.
Google does not currently report the number of subscribers to your feed when it requests the feed, so the number of subscribers you have on Google home or Google Feed reader may be underrepresented by an unknown amount.

And that was mentioned in my original article, which you supposedly read before your Google Reader interview. (you did comment to it)

Why don't they give publishers the same stats provided by other Feed Readers?

Surely they should also give stats for linkblog content as well? (if you think it is so innocent)

Was your podcast with the Google Reader guys a PR exercise or a real interview with searching questions?

And do have a chat with Chris - he might be able to give you a more commercial perspective on this.

RSS could/should be as private as email if that is the wish of the person who owns the content... the publisher.

IANAL but believe it is your responsibility to ask specific permission from each feed owner you intend to republish on your linkblog.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Robert Scoble — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 06:30:35 -0000

Andy: you do realize that I'm best man at Chris Pirillo's wedding next month, right? Do you really want to quote him against me? Heheh.

I helped talk him into using full text feeds and he hasn't complained about my link blog yet. I doubt he will cause I send him a lot of traffic through it.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Robert Scoble — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 06:27:13 -0000

>If you are republishing someones content in whole or in part, or referring to them, isn’t it correct to trackback?

No. Trackback is when you are writing something that would be interesting to that blog post reader. Not reposting the entire post. It's pretty obvious you really haven't looked into the Google Reader. Every post there links to the original post. No trackback needed. Trackbacks go into the comment areas on many blogs and are considered spam when used that way.

>If you quoted the whole of a single article from the NY Times, they would come after you.

The NY Times only does partial feeds. If they published full text feeds they wouldn't come after me. By the way, have you ever talked with the publisher of the NY Times? I have.

I also wouldn't be taking EVERY SINGLE POST of the NY Times, only an occassional one. That usage is covered under fair use and Copyright Law.

>My belief is that individual articles represent a “complete work” as far as intellectual property is concerned.

False. A complete work is your entire publishing output. Your whole blog.

I can quote 10% of a book, for instance, and it'll be covered under fair use. Or 10% of a magazine article.

Scobleizer isn't one post. It's all posts. So, if you take 10% of the posts then I believe that would be covered under fair use. I know people disagree with me. But then they gotta have the money to take it to court, don't they? And, like I said, if you don't want to be reblogged you have two choices:

1) Ask me to stop. I will.
2) Publish partial text feeds.

>I believe that took additional skill to setup, and probably had much greater control over the content that was refed, such as an excerpt.

No additional skill. I just needed to install an app. Any 12-year-old could have done it. I had no control at all, just like here.

>I can setup a tag in Google Reader which is just your content, every single post, and then decide to share the tag as a seperate feed.

Good for you. I really don't care if you do that. How would people learn about it? And, would they see you as authoritative a source as they would me? Doubt it.

>I have been watching the feed count of Darren Rouse at Problogger.net for the last week or so.
>His readership it seems is going down… or so it seems.

Hmmm, I've only posted one or maybe two items from Darren this week. So, are you saying my link blog is getting people to unsubscribe from Darren's feed? If that's what you really are saying then you're simply crazy and not rational.

>That has a huge effect on the value of advertising space.

What's funny is that the folks in my link blog actually tell me that I'm sending them MORE traffic than they had before. Which has a huge effect on the value of advertising.

Like I said, you want to read comments? Gotta click over.

Want to read everything someone publishes? Gotta click over.

My link blog is a traffic generator. It sounds like you're just jealous that I don't read you.

>This is a commercial blog.

This isn't my link blog. How did those people find my link blog?

And, yes, I am doing it to provide a service to my readers. Thank you for noticing!

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

AndyBeard — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 06:20:19 -0000

Maurice: Andy is a Johnny come lately and is trying to make RSS into something it never was designed to do.

You have obviously had your head buried in the sand for too long, need to remove your blinkers, or maybe just expand your horizons a little.

How about a respected source... hmm Chris Pirillo

http://channels.lockergnome...

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

AndyBeard — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 06:02:07 -0000

Andy: do you know anything about copyright? I don’t give my copyrights away to people who are making money off of them. But if you’re using Google Reader, or Bloglines, or want to republish my feeds on sites that don’t have ads, that give full credit, that don’t trackback and spam sites, then I’m cool with that.

My feeds contain a nice copyright statement, even allowing commercial use.
I do understand copyright though IANAL

I worked in the computer games industry, mainly for a Polish developer of business apps and computer games. We faced 95% piracy of our products.

If you are republishing someones content in whole or in part, or referring to them, isn't it correct to trackback? That is the whole idea of trackback.

Again. ALL FEEDS ARE FAIR GAME TO HAVE SOME POSTS REPRINTED. If they don’t want me to repost SOME of their posts (I don’t do all, which is what separates me from a splogger — my use is covered under fair use) then you can ask me to stop doing it, and I will. I’ll just remove you from my reading behavior and that’ll be the end of it.

There are many national newspapers in the US that require payment just for an excerpt.
They offer RSS feeds of their content to subscribers.

My belief is that individual articles represent a "complete work" as far as intellectual property is concerned.

If you quoted the whole of a single article from the NY Times, they would come after you.

That’s not RSS. That’ll be RSS with DRM. Have at it, but it’s not the accepted RSS that we know and love today. It’ll be something else. Call it something else. The RSS defined by Dave Winer didn’t have DRM.

The technology doesn't need DRM as it is already fairly secure as far as delivery.

What you are suggesting is similar to insisting that everyone use PGP for email, and that it shouldn't be viewable outside the intended email client.

I did a refeed with NewsGator, but had to add on a plugin to do that. I did that feed for years.

I believe that took additional skill to setup, and probably had much greater control over the content that was refed, such as an excerpt.

Your splog would be a splog if it took every single item from people in an automated way.

You do realise that Google linkblogs can be setup to be fully automated?

I can setup a tag in Google Reader which is just your content, every single post, and then decide to share the tag as a seperate feed.

There is no sensible way on earth you can block it, or even know who is doing it.

I have been watching the feed count of Darren Rouse at Problogger.net for the last week or so.

His readership it seems is going down... or so it seems.

I notice in your Podcast Google about all the stats they have. It is a shame that publishers will no longer be able to tell who is reading their content.

That has a huge effect on the value of advertising space.

Splogs also are used for two purposes: 1) TO get more links to items that they are being paid to SEO up. They need to hide those links inside other content so that Google doesn’t catch on and kick them out. 2) To put Google ads next to the content so that they can get ad money’s.

I am not suggesting this is what might happen, but this scenario is open to abuse.

"Oh, XYZ just said something nice about my last podcast" “Shift-S”

This is a commercial blog. You have you book advertised in the sidebar, and you frequently link through to your commercial activities, rather than chatting about the roses in your garden.

You are an influencer and an early adopter. Your activities and recommendations carry a lot of weight.
Just adding something to your linkblog, if it is sending traffic to people as you claim, gives you additional influence.

Don't kid yourself about the commercial value of your linkblog content

My link blog does neither.

Really?

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Anita Rowland — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 06:00:38 -0000

I found that I had to be signed in to googlereader (or gmail, is it the same?) to get a non-404 URL for the Subscribe button at the top of your link blog. I was able to use that signed-in URL to subscribe in Sharpreader, though; at first I thought I could *only* sub in google reader itself!

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Robert Scoble — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:13:43 -0000

Andy: >>Actually it is much worse than a high quality splog, as you have don’t very little to add value to the content, such as indexing, folksonomy etc

My value is in picking the gems out of 200 feeds for you so you don't have to.

Maurice: Andy is a Johnny come lately and is trying to make RSS into something it never was designed to do.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

Maurice — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:05:51 -0000

Andy have you not heard of Passwords?

RRS was neaver eaven intended to be a private service other wise they would have built security into the damm protocol.

Re: Andy says I’m an RSS stealer thanks to Google Reader

AndyBeard — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 05:05:43 -0000

One more point

And, if you think my link blog is the same thing as a splog then you aren’t rational.

Actually it is much worse than a high quality splog, as you have don't very little to add value to the content, such as indexing, folksonomy etc