Duffbert's Random Musings

1 - All content on my site LotusLearns.com is garnered via RSS Feed. The idea of "copying" copyrighted content is not what happens here. We leverage aggregated feeds for those global users who accessing this information, YOUR CONTENT via slow bandwidth.

Slow bandwidth means, click throughs don't work from a 56k or 28K modem.

This is why LotusLearns.com exists. If you or anyone else has a better or solution we are all ears!!!

2 - Kelley - One word, attribution. Rather than just taking links and copying content, give credit where credit is due. Planet Lotus is an aggregator that makes it VERY clear that the content all originates elsewhere, and VERY CLEARLY has the author listed for each post. Unlike your site, which occasionally has an author listed, and has a very small link that no one needs to click on since you provide the entire content.

3 - Also, Kelley, please see this post { Link } as apparently you not only posted without attribution, but the content got ruined past the point of helping anyone.

4 - Tell you what, Kellie... Go out to OregonLive.com, copy all their articles onto your site word for word, and also provide a link back to where it appears on their site. You'll get a letter threatening legal action so fast it'll make your head swim.

Read this about Fair Use: { Link }

Try reading this: { Link }

Just because you find it via RSS feed does NOT mean you can copy the content onto your own site.

Finally, here's a good explanation for you... and keep in mind... WITHOUT PERMISSION (which is exactly what you're doing by reposting the content IN FULL of the sites you're pulling): { Link }

You've been asked to stop this by many in the community, and you continue to claim you're in the right by offering this as a service and because you're simply aggregating. This issue is not going to go away, and it's only going to escalate.

5 - Add my name to the list of people who doesn't want my content reprinted in full without my permission. Period. I don't care what the excuse is.

If it were a brief preview with the author's name and a link back to the original article, that would be more acceptable. What Kelley is doing needs to be changed, pure and simple.

6 - I agree, Steve... It doesn't matter why she is doing it. It's wrong. What you propose is normal practice to lead a person to the site that wrote the content. It doesn't matter if someone has low bandwidth. It does not give you the right to post it on your own site.

7 - Interesting enough they are alreay downloading all the content in your site and feed, why not make them able to CHOOSE what to download by clicking the appropriate link and excerpt?

That would make more sense in the bandwidth argument. Good to see other bloggers noticed.

8 - { Link } "RSS is simply a method of delivery and just like other delivery systems -- television signals, radio transmissions, and newspaper deliveries -- the medium doesn't affect the copyright status of the message."

{ Link } "In the end, consider that the New York Times Company, one of the most powerful media institutions on the planet, couldn’t or didn’t want to defend scraping of just headlines and summaries, there’s little hope for a successful defense of full RSS scraping. This is especially true in the light of other, related scraping cases."

9 - If someone wants to do a service to the Lotus community it would be aggregating accurately (that is: proper formatting, full attribution) our content on a server that isn't blocked by China (blogger, wordpress are) and funnel back comments (with the English translation) to the originating sites. We have a lot of talent in China (just check some of the OpenNTF contributions by Chinese IBMers) who would love to participate.

10 - Someone has given Kelley some very bad legal advice. Her claim that RSS is a license to republish is hogwash. It's like claiming that when you get a magazine subscription delivered at home, it's a license to copy the content and publish it in your own magazine. Her claim that she makes no representation that the content is her own is even worse hogwash. If you make 100 copies of a DVD and print all the original information on the copies, you're not making any representation that the content is your own -- but you are guilty of piracy and you will be sued, convicted, and bankrupted.

And she's not just copying content from individual bloggers. She's copying content from IBM web sites. IBM's intellectual property lawyers are known to not have a sense of humor about things like that. All I can say is good luck with that Kelley. We know that there are people from IBM reading this right now!

And the claim that she is performing a service for low-bandwidth uses is pretty laughable, given that she bulks up her page with ads and side columns that probably make her copies use more bandwidth than the original sites in a lot of cases.

11 - @Kellie: I posted this comment on your site in response to your justification for what you are doing. In case you choose not to approve it, I'll reproduce it here (and I can do so since I'm the author of the comment):

"Tell you what... look at this Google search: { Link }

If you have problems with the link, just use Google to search for legal copy RSS content.

If you read the articles on the first page of the returned search results and *still* feel you are in the clear with your practice, let me know. DMCA and/or Cease & Desist notices come next, and you are wide open for damage claims."

12 - I'm pretty cynical. Judging by the amount advertising littered on her site, her reasons for copying your content are just a smoke screen. It's all about using your content to raise her page rating for her Adsense profits, of which, I think would be very marginal.

13 - She has moderated comments on her rip-off site. I can't call it a blog because there is no original content.

14 - Apparently you have to be the owner of the infringed content to report it to Blogger.

15 - She hasn't approved my comment yet. I'm not holding my breath.

16 - She didn't approve the last one I posted up there either.