Well, I can already tell what the headlining post this weekend is going to be on Techmeme (or bitchmeme, a la MG), and its going to probably revolve around Shyftr, a relatively new service in the RSS aggregating category (and lo, since I started writing, it has begun!)
Or, should I say “scraping” category?
No, you’re right — that’s not fair. I know Shyftr has its fans (like Louis Gray, who I respect immensely and is an awesome blogger in his own right)Here’s the cribs notes version as I see them: Shyftr is a new social network that revolves around sharing RSS feeds. Now, what’s so harmless about that, you might add? Surely we have social networks involving all kinds of niches, and aren’t feeds meant to be shared?
Well, there’s sharing, as in “hey, look at this new feed, you should check it out” — and there’s sharing, also known as, “I’m going to scrape and republish a blogger’s an entire feed, so that many people can check it out”.
And in that respect, Shyftr is a lot like Toluu, which allows people to publicly share feeds as well, although the social network aspect of Shyftr is absent (i.e you cannot comment on particular feeds or stories).
Let me be clear: I am making no value judgements against its creators or against its original intent (which may have been to let people have fun in sharing their feeds).
However, in my mind, when a service cannot exist *without* republishing others content in its entirety, and directly profits from that republishing without the original consent of the author, there’s something that isn’t right.
What do I mean by “profit” when none of these services are *actually* making a profit? Well, I am using the term loosely, in that they are deriving the present benefit of *existing*, and the real future benefit of earnings around republishing someone else’s content.
Now the fact that “conversations” are also happening above, around, and beyond the original blogs is interesting, but ultimately a foot note in this conversation; services like Friendfeed also aggregate conversations around blogging topics, but unlike Shyftr and Toluu, don’t host the *entire* feed.
So where am I drawing the line that Shyftr crosses?
Well, I accept the idea that conversations are going to be fractured, and that I don’t *own* them. I would *like* to host them on this blog, but I do realize that conversations have a life of their own (and run wild and free wherever they like) and exist wherever they like because their real owners are those folks who are having them. I only have the privilege of starting them, and participating in them wherever they are.
To bully and force them into being in a certain place (i.e. here) would be profoundly myopic, and as a blogger (i.e. someone who is supposed to understand and navigate these kinds of new media landmines) — heck, I don’t even know the right word. Some combination of “stupid” and “hypocritical”, like a doctor not renewing his own prescriptions for blood pressure medication, a teacher not doing his or her own homework.
(”hypo-stupid?”)
Oh wait, someone’s already demonstrated this recently.
Anyway, its not the conversations being hosted somewhere else that bothers me, its that there are a new crop of services which would not otherwise exist without republishing someone else’s content without the original author’s explicit permission. Well, lots of people’s content. And you can dress it up and all kinds of clothing and all kinds of nifty wrappers, but ultimately that’s what this is about.
And to me, that’s what the line is, and in my mind services like Shyftr (wittingly or unwittingly) cross it.
Now is the problem with RSS feeds? That we don’t understand the explicit rights that are associated with it? Perhaps. This isn’t a new conversation after all (here’s a link from Scoble circa 2005), and let’s be real clear: this topic is probably as old as RSS feeds itself.
I’m no copyright guru, and I don’t pretend to know all the details of what that entails, but what I do know is this: unless and until there is a general consensus about what the rights around RSS feeds are (because my bias is that there is absolutely no implied rights to reproduce carte blanche), I think there is a moral and ethical obligation to obtain content from the content owners about reproducing feeds in their entirety, particularly if its going to be used as part of public service which a) has or will generate profits from a service which is based on those feeds and therefore is a b) service which cannot exist without reproducing (i.e. “copying”) those feeds.
Until they do, they’re a lot like another kind of site or blog which fits that kind of definition.
{an ugly word, I know}
Update: Eric Berlin, who’s initial Tweets prompted this post chimes in and, amongst other cogent arguments, echoes Mat Ingram’s sentiments: building a business around someone the full reproduction of other’s content doesn’t seem right.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:21 am | Permalink
[...] Here’s the posts from the debate so far: Louis Gray, Matthew Ingram, and not to be missed, Deep Jive Interests. [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 1:50 am | Permalink
[...] is basically nothing more than an RSS reader with comments. A number of bloggers, like Tony Hung and Eric Berlin are taking offense with this because they did not give Shyftr explicit consent to [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 2:43 am | Permalink
I know there are many different opinions on this, and it probably will last throughout the weekend, but I have to disagree. After all, isn’t the very act of creating an RSS feed permission to republish content? It’s not as if Shyftr is saying ‘here, read this feed.’ You have to add the feed yourself, and if you so desire, you can look at the feeds your friends have and add them to your list.
More of my thoughts in this post: http://www.thattalldude.com/main/2008/04/as-i-went-to-ch.html
Twitter @thattalldude
April 12th, 2008 at 2:51 am | Permalink
@Shawn — that’s the problem … there is no commonly understood meaning for stuff that is published; certainly, that’s my understanding from a legal point of view.
Secondly, even if Shyftr isn’t adding the feeds themselves, the fact that it provides a place for them, and indeed wouldn’t be able to exist *without* the content of those feeds makes it dubious from a content ownership point of view (provided that you believe in such things, or that content owners have any rights at all)
Cheers
tony.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:54 am | Permalink
there’s a similar social reader - Mindity. It’s a desktop client (with OPML import/export!)
http://www.mindity.com/WhatIs.aspx
April 12th, 2008 at 4:12 am | Permalink
Here’s the posts from the debate so far: Louis Gray, Matthew Ingram, and not to be missed, Deep Jive Interests
April 12th, 2008 at 4:23 am | Permalink
Good read Tony - will certainly keep the interweb fueled this weekend. What I would like to add, with the admission that I read ~96.4% of my stuff online via RSS, is what about the elements of the blog (blogroll, personalized comment systems, previous articles etc) that are lost as well in going through a third party. Yes I agree that they are in most RSS feeds as well, but I these distinctions help me decide to keep my subscription or ditch it to the ‘won’t miss it if I empty this folder” folder. I just don’t feel right going searching for those things through a third party. Beyond the ‘who owns it/where should the conversation take place’ argument, what about the blog/site itself as an influencer?
Brad
April 12th, 2008 at 5:24 am | Permalink
How do you define “entirety” when you write “when a service cannot exist *without* republishing others content in its entirety”? Is this the distinction that makes services like Google News and Techmeme OK, and Shyftr not?
April 12th, 2008 at 7:19 am | Permalink
[...] a counterpoint, Tony Hung tells us all to NOT steal his content. Me? I’ve found that by being open with my content a lot of good has come back to me, so [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 9:05 am | Permalink
Shawn no just because I offer a full feed RSS feed it does not mean that I intend you to republish it. Process, most of the time yes. Personal consumption in a reader (even for a biz cause), yes.
Republishing it, hurting my google ranking and putting my content somewhere else outside of my control not so much in the sense of control but features like editing? No.
For you to be ‘allowed’ to republish my content, I want something back. Feedreaders like bloglines or Google reader earn money probably through sold attention data. But they give me something valuable back.
What does a site that just takes away the content give me back? Nothing. And as such I am not okay with it, and to be frank: Licensing rights kick in and are very simple on this.
April 12th, 2008 at 10:49 am | Permalink
[...] can get “the dirt” on Shyftr from Louis Gray, Tony Hung and Mathew Ingram but the angle that I want to explore is whether all the activity happening [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 11:04 am | Permalink
[...] places has some measure of legitimacy and is worthwhile to pursue. Opposite Gray and Scoble sits Tony Hung of Deep Jive Interests, among others, who finds that an entity of Shyfter’s making “crosses the [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 11:15 am | Permalink
I suppose if these kind of scrapers are taking content then maybe the blogger should run ads actually in the body of the post a la TechCrunch.
Scrapers have been ’stealing’ jobs for a lot longer than blog posts and that seems to have sorted itself into a kind of ‘equal status’. The battle may of course only be simmering……..
Great post.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:54 am | Permalink
Is this the right link for Tolou? http://www.tolou.com/
kamla bhatt
April 12th, 2008 at 12:13 pm | Permalink
Great post, Tony–and there are some important comments here as well.
In my work with Placeblogger.com, we decided some time ago to aggregate only 200 characters from a feed because we wanted to drive traffic back to the source. This is a good model for sharing content with others and giving back to the person who’s created the content.
Now, this is different from when I publish my own full feed for my blog, The Constant Observer. When I publish my full feed, it’s as a courtesy to my readers, who come back to my site to either read the whole thing again, to see comments, or to leave comments.
If comments along with the post are going somewhere else, where I can’t respond to them, and I’m losing not just the conversation but also all the stuff the Nicole Simon noted, and, to add insult to injury, someone’s making money off of it, what, then, becomes my reason for writing anymore? Seems like, with Shyfter, my content, my comments, and any authority and social/networking connections I might make are being co-opted by someone else–and that, IMO, is worse than Google not knowing you’re there.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:26 pm | Permalink
@Khamla — no, you’re right. Its changed. The name has no “o” after the “l”, but two “u’s” instead.
That’s the problem with these web2.0 names. Sometimes you can never remember the deliberate mispelling; or, sometimes the name is so creative (as with Toluu) you have a hard time remembering it correctly at all.
Cheers
t @ dji
April 12th, 2008 at 12:35 pm | Permalink
@Tish — (thanks for stopping by!) some good comments, and glad to hear that Placeblogger is doing what I believe to be the right thing.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:36 pm | Permalink
@nick — thanks, Nick. But that came perilously close to comment spam, seeing as you’ve dropped the exact same message across a bunch of blogs this morning.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:40 pm | Permalink
@Brad — good question. And that sort of its the heart of it. Is it right that the original blog potentially get none of the acclaim, conversation, traffic, or whatever kind of metric you want to use?
Is that *ok* for bloggers to merely know that their thoughts and opinions are being used for conversational fodder *elsewhere*? That they have to be content with that?
And that’s besides the topic of it being repurposed, retooled, or merely recopied, plus or minus appropriate credit.
Cheers
t @ dji
April 12th, 2008 at 12:41 pm | Permalink
@Peter — ads in the middle of your post isn’t such a bad idea, actually (if you’re having this problem and its recalcitrant and neverending). :)
April 12th, 2008 at 12:54 pm | Permalink
[...] conversation that took place on Twitter, Friendfeed, and later across a number of blogs, including Tony Hung, [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 1:11 pm | Permalink
@Nicole — you may be right in the end. I wish someone who was an expert on copyright issues would comment on this whole thing. :P
April 12th, 2008 at 1:11 pm | Permalink
[...] on Shyftr. While some seem to like the service, others talk about theft. Tony Hung feels Shyftr has crossed a line : However, in my mind, when a service cannot exist *without* republishing others content in its [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 1:12 pm | Permalink
syn•di•cate: to publish simultaneously, or supply for simultaneous publication, in a number of newspapers or other periodicals in different places
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/syndicate
An historical definition, perhaps, but is RSS really any different? How can you call it “scraping” when your site is all but saying “here’s an easy way to access my content!”? Furthermore, how can you claim it’s done “without the original consent of the author” when the feed (in Shyftr) clearly displays a Creative Commons license – a license that is ironically absent (that I can find) from your own site.
In particular, consider the following excerpt of the full license (Section 3a): “… Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright) license … to Reproduce the Work, to incorporate the Work into one or more Collections, and to Reproduce the Work as incorporated in the Collections”
So in fact you do grant implied (RSS) and explicit (CC) permission to syndicate and share your content. But what about the license conditions? Attribution is clearly not a problem, as the Feedburner link and author are impossible to miss (as in any feed reader). Similarly, as the work is reproduced in full, it would not be considered a derivate work. But what about Noncommercial?
Well, what constitutes commercial use? The language of the license isn’t particularly helpful, but without advertisement in or around your content, I find it rather difficult to see its use as “primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation”. Sorry, but “deriving the present benefit of existing” probably doesn’t cut it for the courts. Not to mention that the success of Digg and Slashdot, which don’t actually reproduce article content, would indicate there are viable business models around the community side of the site, independent of the republished content.
You create content, your feed publishes it, a reader aggregates it, external communities comment on it. Shyfter is just a convergent user interface on the same old process. If you don’t have a problem with Google Reader or Digg, what’s so special about a combination of the two? If your content justifies a visit “home”, particularly for a conversation including the author, Shyftr won’t change that.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:38 pm | Permalink
@Keith — clever chap, bringing in the dictionary definition of syndicate.
Here’s what would be even *more* clever. You say I have no CC on my site?
I *DO* have the creative commons license … on my *feed*, which is where Shyftr is pulling the content. Its a partial one and its been there since I started publishing a feed.
So no, its not a full license as you go on to write, its a partial one that (as you can probably imagine), where people can share as long as it is non-commercial, that it is attributed, and that it is non-derivative.
As I see it Shyftr violates the non-commercial thing (that they don’t have ads now doesn’t make it a non-commercial enterprise) and the non-derivative thing (they’re building a social network around feeds, so yes, in fact, that’s derivative).
You can read it over here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
My feed is over here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/deepjiveinterests
… and *lo*, there is a badge in the top right hand corner (if you’re using your browser to take a look at it).
Now, the fact that Shyftr is imposing ANOTHER CC license on top of mine makes it doubly outrageous, as the implication is that they have the right to assign a CC on another’s work.
Lastly, the difference between Digg, Slashdot and Shyftr? The difference is that Shyftr is lifting my *entire* post. By only highlighting the topic and stubs, Digg and Slashdot only provide a pointer to there the original content is.
Cheers
Tony.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:47 pm | Permalink
[...] friend Tony Hung has a longish and typically thoughtful post on the topic. The Scobleizer says bloggers essentially have no control over their content any more [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 4:17 pm | Permalink
Clever chap? I’m still curious how reading a feed is “scraping”…
And have you actually seen your stuff on Shyftr, or are you just making assumptions? The license I was referring to is the one from your feed, which Shyftr is kind enough to render on your behalf, much like FeedBurner’s stylesheet. What on Shyftr’s site gives you any indication that it claims your content as its own?
As for the rights your license grants, the “Commons Deed” you reference is just a “human-readable summary of the Legal Code”:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode
Section 4 is very specific about the restrictions on the use of your content, and I don’t see anything that Shyftr would violate more than any other (commercial) feed reader or community site (by your comments-as-derivative argument). The former justifies its existence through the reproduction of others’ content; the latter justifies its existence by facilitating conversation about others’ content. If you accept these justifications independently, why is Shyftr at fault for bringing them together? Am I missing something?
April 12th, 2008 at 4:53 pm | Permalink
[...] take place after we post on our blogs. The former editor of the Blog Herald Tony Hung thinks aggregation services have crossed the line. I tend to disagree. It’s like Restaurants having policies that you are only allowed to talk [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 5:30 pm | Permalink
[...] of Splogs are doing, taking the feeds and republishing with out the original consent of the author. Tony Hung thinks Shyftr crossing the line and i agree with [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 5:48 pm | Permalink
Mart, very intersting post, I have done a follow up to the whole ‘bitchmeme’ - http://blog.fav.or.it/2008/04/12/fractured-commenting-again/
Not sure if you have come across fav.or.it before - but we built it from the basis that blog owners need to get more comments not less! I have been blogging for over a year, and to me the most important things 1) my readers 2) the contribution from the readers in comments.
So when we built the service we decided that as long as the technology was mature enough we would support the creative commons - this we have done (although we havent yet made much noise about it) - and one great thing these days is that feedburner now supports CC - so no one can be excused from not having the ability to add a license to their feed.
I do see long term the CC being adopted as a standard way for all RSS aggregators to understand how they are allowed to use the content, we are glad we are the first (unless told otherwise) to start the ball rolling.
April 12th, 2008 at 6:25 pm | Permalink
[...] owns this post? Are pageviews still relevant? Should blog content creators be upset? Is Shyftr crossing the line? Let it all just [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 6:33 pm | Permalink
[...] and where it takes place. We’ve got Louis Gray for the "Steal Me" team and Tony Hung for the "Don’t Steal Me" team. Then there’s Robert Scoble who should probably [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 7:22 pm | Permalink
The argument that RSS provides an implied license to republish content is as old as scraping itself. I see it all of the time and many, like a commenter above, like to point out that the second S stands for syndicate.
That ignores the fact that RSS originally stood for “Rich Site Summary”, the syndication one came years later. It also ignores that there has been no court ruling upholding an implied license with RSS feeds and most lawyers feel that, when it does, the ruling will be that there is none simply because the most common use of RSS, by far, is private reading.
Furthermore, even if there is an implied license, it would be trumped by an actual one. No matter what you call the technology, if I say that I don’t want it used for a certain purpose, it can’t be used for it. Just like how Google can not index or cache sites that don’t allow it.
If you want to read more on this topic, here’s an article on my site I wrote about this a while back, everything should still hold true:
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2006/08/29/why-rss-scraping-isnt-ok/
All in all, the second “S” argument is a misunderstanding of copyright law, especially in this case where an actual license exists.
April 12th, 2008 at 7:49 pm | Permalink
We talked about this years ago, just as Creative Commons was starting and just as people were debating the issue of full feeds versus partial.
Anyway, here’s one post, one from 2002, Bob Wyman did a take on the topic and he referenced Denise Howell who is a lawyer and did right fairly definitely on the topic. And those are just a few, there are hundreds more. All you need do, is search on the terms.
Your stuff is copyrighted, as soon as you create it. It’s still copyrighted even if you attach a CC license. Why on earth anyone would attach a CC license to a feed that doesn’t duplicate the CC license attached to their web site, I don’t know. Releasing your information into a syndication feed does not change the copyright (ala Nicole above).
Where the problems pop up is when is the act of distribution ended, and the act of copying beginning? If there is an implicit license to distribute, because of the nature of the feed, when does it tip over the edge to actual copying, rather than being just another distributing agent.
Then, if one assumes an act of copyright violation, how does one deal with it? Other than getting heavy hitters to link to you on a weekend on Techmeme?
The issue of comments on a post at another site has also been brought up in the past, and me thinks I see some people who were outraged in the past going along with the “words just want to be free” crowd. Whether they’ve changed their mind, or are just following the crowd is hard to say.
Short answer: don’t like it? Use partial feeds.
April 12th, 2008 at 8:14 pm | Permalink
@Shelley — thanks for stopping by.
a) I’ve acknowledged that its an old, old conversation
b) the solution re: partial feeds is also an oldie but goodie as well.
I’ve had partial feeds in the past — toying with the idea again.
c) yes, i plan to throw up the CC on this site as well. Like the comments policy, I didn’t have one up until something “happened” which suggested I do the right thing. Thanks :)
tony.
April 12th, 2008 at 8:37 pm | Permalink
I don’t understand. If you don’t want people to get your feed disable it. I enable my rss feed on my blog and the reason is….call me crazy…I WANT people to read it. I don’t care if they are on my blog or http://www.allthefriggingblogsintheworld.com as long as people are able to read it and to engage in a dialogue.
Also, isn’t this very dialogue what the internet is all about? What blogging is all about? What feeds are all about? It’s about getting people to weigh in, comment, and potentially even dare I say it, learn.
Get over yourselves. Shyftr is another opportunity for you to distribute your content. Nothing more.
April 12th, 2008 at 10:37 pm | Permalink
How is this any different than Google Reader? I can read full feeds there. The difference is you can’t comment on feeds IN Google reader, but you can in Shyftr, correct? I’d think if this were stealing, a company as large and known as Google wouldn’t be doing it, right?
April 12th, 2008 at 11:06 pm | Permalink
[...] Not on board: Tony Hung [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 1:46 am | Permalink
[...] was going to talk about the finer points that both Tony Hung and Mark Evans brought to the table about how they didn’t think what was being done was so [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 2:51 pm | Permalink
[...] couldn’t resist: the weekend’s bitchmeme was fractured commenting in the blogosphere. On Deep Jive Interests Tony started the conversation by getting riled up over Shyftr, Louis Gray pushes the meme forward, [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 3:28 pm | Permalink
[...] I raised the issue of whether Shyftr crossed a line in its usage of full-text feeds, and Tony Hung said he was pretty sure that it did. Other bloggers have also spoken out about the company’s attempts to [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 3:59 pm | Permalink
[...] BUT - and a BIG BUT unlike fav.or.it those comments stay within Shyftr. So quite a few bloggers are up in arms that they are losing comments + traffic because those readers are staying within [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 4:16 pm | Permalink
[...] In short, some bloggers, like Mathew Ingram (also a writer for Toronto’s Globe and Mail) and Tony Jung, thought it went too far in its handling of content culled from feeds across the Web, while others, [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 4:27 pm | Permalink
Hi Tony,
Good post and interesting conversation. Having read through the 30 or so comments I am wondering what your position is with regard to:
1) Google Reader vs. Shyftr regarding allowing users to read the full content of the post (as raised by comment @37). Is it because Google Reader is not “publishing the content per se”?
2) why you think that the solution of using partial feeds is not giving enough control to the publishers who actually want to enforce the constraint you want to put on the use of the content.
Thanks
Edwin
April 13th, 2008 at 4:44 pm | Permalink
[...] places has some measure of legitimacy and is worthwhile to pursue. Opposite Gray and Scoble sits Tony Hung of Deep Jive Interests, among others, who finds that an entity of Shyfter’s making “crosses the [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 5:15 pm | Permalink
[...] In short, some bloggers, like Mathew Ingram (also a writer for Toronto’s Globe and Mail) and Tony Hung, thought it went too far in its handling of content culled from feeds across the Web, while others, [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 5:25 pm | Permalink
@Edwin — to answer your questions
1. yes
2. I do think partial feeds are fine. In fact, Shyftr made some changes which are fine with me, and in fact, could have included the first 100 or 200 characters or so.
April 13th, 2008 at 6:35 pm | Permalink
[...] that Shyftr, the service that I have allegedly thrown under the bus, has rectified the item that I brayed so loudly about, which in turn, led to the leading news node on Techmeme for the [...]
April 13th, 2008 at 7:09 pm | Permalink
So “building a business around the full reproduction of other’s content doesn’t seem right” but if it’s a portion of a business (Google Reader, FeedDemon, etc) it’s OK?
But alas, Shyftr has demoted itself to just another Digg clone, and the world returns to only reading and discussing in different tabs.
April 13th, 2008 at 7:44 pm | Permalink
@Keith — absolutely. The difference is that the intention of Google Reader or FeedDemon are private readers; their modus operandi is not to push full feeds out publicly as a “collection” for general distribution.
April 13th, 2008 at 7:48 pm | Permalink
Interesting discussion happening here to:
http://www.lastpodcast.net/2008/04/11/go-ahead-steal-my-content/
@tony. Thanks for the clarification. Given that as you pointed out the interpretation of RSS is not totally clear on what is fair use of an RSS feed. What are your concerns with the interpretation where: partial feed -> display only the title and 100 characters and full feed -> you can display the content with full attribution and link back to the source.
What is nice about this interpretation is that 1) it gives 100% control to the source, 2) it is operationally viable to implement by aggregator sites (whereas having to ask explicit permission for every site a user might import in an aggregator is not operationally viable). 3) And it allows people like Frederic, Louis, Scoble and other who actually want to be syndicated to win mindshare and attention to not be penalized.
No?
April 13th, 2008 at 7:51 pm | Permalink
[...] site and letting people comment within Shyftr on those posts. There were a lot of really good posts from either side of the issue of whether what Shyftr was doing was right or wrong. I know myself my first reaction [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 2:58 am | Permalink
[...] Hung: Comes out swinging against Shyftr. Says the aggregation of comments away from the originating blog is wrong. To make his point, Tony [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 6:01 am | Permalink
[...] zusammen schaffen aber ein ziemliches Durcheinander. Und sie bergen eine Gefahr in sich, auf die Tony Hung (Deep Jive Interests) vehement hinweist: Das Aggregieren könne auch zu weit gehen, wenn etwa [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 6:29 am | Permalink
[...] now we look at the counterpoint. Tony Hung says Shyftr crosses the line. He brings up very valid points as most people want to know what the conversation is and where it [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 7:17 am | Permalink
[...] monthly costs such as hosting. (Hat tip to Steve Hodson, who wote an excellent post yesterday, and Deep Jive Interests, who accurately described Shyftr’s activity as “scraping”, although Shyftr claims [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 9:05 am | Permalink
Tony, I wanted to apologizing for misreading your intent here as well as to your comment on my blog. I don’t like it when people misunderstand and misquote me either so I figured I should just let you know.
Shyfter quickly changed their minds too. Funny how the blogging community can have that affect.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:57 am | Permalink
[...] such as Robert Scoble and Louis Gray came down in favor of the service while others, including Tony Hung and Raoul Pop were firmly against [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 2:04 pm | Permalink
[...] FriendFeed and Shyfter is going to change anything. Tony Hung makes a good argument that Shyfter crosses the line but he does accept that user comments do not belong to [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 2:58 pm | Permalink
Interesting conversation that is as old as RSS itself. I think the key point is the Google Reader (or Netvibes, Netflakes, etc.) versus Shyftr. You seem to be making the argument that Shyftr isn’t okay but Google is because an individual has to add a feed to Google Reader, while Shyftr is a community aggregator. But in very real terms, what is the difference?
If 100 people add your feed to their Google Reader and 100 people like the pre-made aggregated feeds on a site that includes yours but are too lazy or too unsophisticated to manage RSS subscriptions themselves (and there are a LOT that fit in that group), what is the difference? The bottom line is that a third party company is organizing content in a more convenient fashion for consumers.
Finally, there really is an easy solution built right into RSS: Just post partial feeds.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:32 am | Permalink
[...] In short, some bloggers, like Mathew Ingram (also a writer for Toronto’s Globe and Mail) and Tony Hung, thought it went too far in its handling of content culled from feeds across the Web, while others, [...]
April 15th, 2008 at 3:32 am | Permalink
[...] In short, some bloggers, like Mathew Ingram (also a writer for Toronto’s Globe and Mail) and Tony Hung, thought it went too far in its handling of content culled from feeds across the Web, while others, [...]
April 16th, 2008 at 1:45 am | Permalink
[...] conversazione si è immediatamente infiammata, dividendosi tra i detrattori: Mathew Ingram e Tony Hung e quelli a favore: Louis Gray e, ovviamente, Robert Scoble. Scoble ipotizza direttamente la fine [...]
April 16th, 2008 at 8:11 am | Permalink
[...] sfruttano proprio questo sistema per permettere agli utenti di commentare i post letti. Secondo Tony Hung, infatti, il problema non è su dove risiedono i commenti, in quanto le conversazioni hanno vita [...]
April 16th, 2008 at 9:33 am | Permalink
“However, in my mind, when a service cannot exist *without* republishing others content in its entirety, and directly profits from that republishing without the original consent of the author, there’s something that isn’t right.”
Hello, all feed readers??? Get over it. This discussion is lame…
April 21st, 2008 at 11:52 am | Permalink
[...] the recent uproar about Shyfter, an enterprising company attempting to bring content scraping into the mainstream. While things [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 2:11 pm | Permalink
I think the livingroom blog with digital camera reviews from Darren Rowse (he’ll probably sees this comment through his google alert :-) is content scraping too. That’s splogging but strangely noone seems to mind.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:16 am | Permalink
[...] says Shyftr Crosses The Line Anyway, its not the conversations being hosted somewhere else that bothers me, its that there are [...]
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm | Permalink
[...] Tony Hung: “Fine, I’ll Say It: Shyftr Crosses The Line“ [...]
May 8th, 2008 at 11:36 am | Permalink
[...] service or at least see its potential, such as like Louis Gray and Robert Scoble; others, such as Tony Hung of Deep Jive Interests says it crosses a [...]
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm | Permalink
[...] So what happens when someone takes an RSS feed and uses it in a way that the author doesn’t like? Can the author suddenly cry “Copyright infringement!” and have the whole thing shut down? Some bloggers appear to think so: By providing the full content of my RSS feed, and therefore my content, on their site, they deprive me of those visitors who would otherwise come directly to my site. If I had advertising on my site, they could also be depriving me of revenue… In the same way that I can’t reprint a Harry Potter book and start selling it for my own gain, we need to realize that we can’t do that with RSS feeds or other Web content either. While Fair Use is OK, you can’t just start lifting and reusing entire bodies of work without permission. [Larry Borsato, PC World] [W]hen a service cannot exist *without* republishing others content in its entirety, and directly profits from that republishing without the original consent of the author, there’s something that isn’t right. [Tony Hung, Deep Jive Interests] [...]