Blog Net News
I'm curious to know what everyone thinks about Dave Mastio's Blog News Net? Evidently he's a fan of STL Bloggers as it looks like he aggregated posts from the whole blogroll and sells advertising off of it.
I'd be interested in reading different perspectives on the topic.
Submitted by
John
at 3/11/2008 7:18:24 AM- Interesting. I'm not sure of the legalities. If a blog has a rss feed, we are basically syndicating our posts to anyone who wants to use them through the feed. (RSS means really simple syndication.) So are we giving him permission to use our feeds in this manner simply by having an RSS feed?
He's not stealing our content -- he's just displaying the feeds that we are providing him with.
(He isn't using the entire posts...except for really short posts...though I'm not sure that matters.)
Submitted by
Raquita
at 3/11/2008 8:38:04 AM- I personally don't approve of anyone making money on my content with out my expressed approval - which would require a percentage paid to me.
if it was about getting exposure (which as an artist I hate when people try to pay you in exposure) then it would work like this site and just offer links, and community.
I second the cease and desist letter
Submitted by
John
at 3/11/2008 8:54:26 AM- Here's a post about the issue, with some quotes from Intellectual Property lawyers on the legality issues. It's a year old, so I don't know if anything's changed since then.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 9:45:59 AM- John,
The article you link to is fairly shallow since it doesn't mention the core legal concept -- fair use.
There is a pretty good discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
Here's the essence:
"It (fair use) provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. It is based on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution."
Until last week, BNN followed the same opt-out policy as Google on our city-based aggregators (though I am not sure how rigorously Google follows it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602454.html
Last week we received an email from Dana from Mamalogues ccing her lawyer and demanding to be removed from BNN. Shortly thereafter, I learned the Dana was involved in plans for city-by-city blog directories/community sites. See here: http://www.midwestblogs.com/welcome-to-midwest-blogs/
Given that Dana's concern seems to stem from her plans to compete with BNN, I've decided to reevaluate our practices.
Submitted by
jyoseph
at 3/11/2008 10:09:03 AM- I wouldn't be worried, the site is really hard to read anyway. I feel like I'm trapped in that level of Mario Bro's where the mushrooms are really big. God bless rss feeds.
Let's mash up his feeds and put them on our site. It's fair use, right?
Submitted by
kat
at 3/11/2008 10:25:10 AM- Haven't we had this argument before on STLBloggers? Maybe i have just been here too long. . .
i blog because i am an exhibitionist. i want people to read my rants, as mundane as they may be.
this argument always seems to boil down to someone who is trying to make money getting pissed at someone who is making money. As one who doesn't blog for money, i couldn't care less.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 10:26:33 AM- jyosph,
As long as you give us credit and a link, we're happy to have you use our feeds however you want.
We even built a tool that makes combined feeds from a city blogosphere or a state public affairs blogosphere more useful to folks who want the info cut to match their interests: www.blognetnews.com/feedcentral
So if you wanted to publish a page linking to the latest posts about a local mayor or mentioning a controversial housing development or whatever strikes your fancy, we make it easy.
Submitted by
John
at 3/11/2008 10:27:05 AM- jyoseph - That would just be doing what he's doing since his only feeds are our own.
It seems like BNN may be going back to an opt-out policy - which would allow anyone who doesn't want their blog there to easily remove it.
Dave - Wikipedia isn't authoritative. A quote from the senior IP lawyer from the Electronic Fronteir Foundation (which appears in the post to which I linked) is authoritative. It is true there wasn't a large discussion of all the issues, but the lawyers were basically saying its a gray area until there is a case on it that goes through the courts. I wouldn't want to be the operator of a site that tests the law.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 10:29:21 AM- kat,
Interesting thought. It would be nice to check out those old debates. Wish Stlbloggers had a search function.
BNN does.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 10:30:15 AM
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 10:33:51 AM- John,
Everyone knows that Wikipedia isn't authoritative, that's why I referred to it as a "pretty good discussion," not holy writ.
As much as I respect the Electronic Frontier Foundation, I don't think any couple line quote from any source about a complex legal issue is "authoritative."
While we're on the subject of EFF, you might check out their site, there's lot of interesting info on how an expansive definition of fair use is in the best interests of bloggers.
Submitted by
Liz
at 3/11/2008 11:32:42 AM- Dave,
Dana isn't involved in Midwest Blogs other than being a participant in the network. In addition, MWB is not in competition with BNN since we do not plan to aggregate members' posts. If you want to discuss MWB and our agenda, then please contact me.
Submitted by
kathyp
at 3/11/2008 11:34:28 AM- Is someone is aggregating posts and making money from it, yeah, that bothers me. Doesn't that fall under "feed scraping?"
Submitted by
Dana from Mamalogues
at 3/11/2008 12:29:50 PM- Dave, if I wanted to compete with BNN it wouldn't be hard, what, with the most basic technology and hours of free time.
I've also heard that requests for removal are often refused. At least, that's what I've read.
Submitted by
Dana from Mamalogues
at 3/11/2008 12:33:02 PM- Oh and Dave - I requested removal because you are using my federally registered trademark to sell your ads without my permission. I have nothing to do with MidWest Blogs other than I listed my blog there. Please get the story right.
Submitted by
jyoseph
at 3/11/2008 12:47:02 PM- It still seems weak to me. When I go to the site, click a link on the sidebar I'm presented with a list of blog posts from that blogger. There is nothing that says anything to the effect of "The following posts are syndicated through.. etc", with a link to the main page of the site.
To any unsuspecting browser you are giving the appearance that the posts come from your website. Even the permalink directs users to your site and not the original authors site.
It feels more like a desperate attempt to boost your own rankings (content=king which means more advertisers) as opposed to spreading the word about bloggers from St. Louis. You could do more on your part to make it more clear.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 1:14:23 PM- Liz,
Until some time in the last few hours, Dana was listed as one of the founders of Midwest blogs.
Aggregation isn't the only way to compete with BNN, that's why I referred to your plans as a "a blog directory/community site." Those are also things we aspire to and continue to build new features to support.
Dana,
Using a trademarked name to refer to the trademark owner and link to the trademark owner's site has never been a violation of trademark.
And Dana, I invite you to try to create a site that does everything BNN does. You'll find it is a little harder than it looks and aggregation is but a tiny part of it.
Jyoseph,
There are always ways we could do it better and we'll keep trying, but I am stuck with my design until after the elections. A couple things in the link category -- every post except on those index pages and on our front page link twice to the originating blog (in the headline and at the ... thingy.)
And our right sidebar/blogroll changes to direct links when you use the alphabetize or sort function. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to categorize St. Louis blogs yet.
Submitted by
Dana from Mamalogues
at 3/11/2008 1:31:47 PM- Dave, I don't expect you to understand trademark law so please don't assume that I am as clueless as you are on the issue.
I've no interest in creating another BNN. I'm interested in creating, period, not "aggregating" creations for profit. I was also also never listed as a "founder." WTH?
Dave aside, my thought is there isn't an open invitation to use content for profit, unless it's explicitly stated, just because someone allows for RSS of their work.
Submitted by
Prologos
at 3/11/2008 1:35:40 PM- Several core issues are quite obvious here:
- Bloggers don't blog so that other people (ahem, BNN/Mastio) can make money off of them.
- BNN/Mastio is making many a blogger rather angry.
- Mastio is showing his true disregard for bloggers in his repeated dismissal of their concerns and requests to be removed from the site.
- Dana is not a founder of Midwest Blogs. Get the story right. I've chosen to have my blog listed on Midwest Blogs (and stlbloggers, for that matter), just as Dana has. . . this does not make us founders. It instead makes us willing participants. It's clear Midwest Blogs is not in competition with BNN, as one is an honorable site and the other is not. One is voluntary; one is not. One creates community; one does not. One supports bloggers; one uses them for profit.
Submitted by
Melody
at 3/11/2008 1:35:44 PM- Dave,
Until sometime a few hours ago I was listed as one of the founders... I am the writer behind www.News-bitch.com.
I am friends with Dana who does Mamalogues (I guess you are better at aggregation than knowing who you are aggregating), but I am the one who removed myself from the project... and as a co-founder I can easily say that there were no attempts at aggregation planned for this site... the plan - which has been pretty successful so far, is in building a community which it seems you only know how to try to anger the communities you become invovled in. There are no feeds, the stories on there are contributed by members of the community at their voluntary submission because they believe in the project - not because we are scraping their site for nothing more than ad revenue.
I have done some research and have found the same response to your "project" in nearly every community you have decided to go into and exploit... starting with Virginia.
Also, do you run vanity searches every 10 minutes or something... you really seem to feel like you need to come in and defend yourself awfully quickly
Submitted by
Melody
at 3/11/2008 1:37:32 PM- when you are innocent and doing the righteous thing you shouldn't have to defend yourself
Submitted by
Jack Burton
at 3/11/2008 1:46:47 PM- Dave,
I've looked around your site and none of the links you provide like back to the original blog.
What's up with that?
Not the permalink, not the blog roll, not the blog title, etc.
Defend that, you hack.
AND GIVE ME MY TRUCK BACK
Submitted by
Jack Burton
at 3/11/2008 1:47:52 PM- They don't LINK back either.
Submitted by
elitsirk
at 3/11/2008 1:56:03 PM- The following is an excerpt from the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107, defining fair use. Note the wording about "whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes". BTW, I copied this from that Wikipedia article on "fair use", you know--the one that this Dave person quoted earlier....
I'm not a lawyer, so I don't presume to give anyone legal advice or make accusations about legality. However, I do know unethical behavior when I see it.
I believe that we should, at a minimum, try to avoid giving his site any more hits than we already have--isn't that what makes him money on all those annoying ads?
Here's the quote--
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections § 106 and § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 2:07:37 PM- So tell us, Rebecca ... you say, "Mastio is showing his true disregard for bloggers in his repeated dismissal of their concerns and requests to be removed from the site."
Rebecca, did you ask to be added to BNN because you thought it was a good idea? Why yes.
When you later asked to be removed, did BNN remove you? Why yes.
So why would you say these things when your own experience has been exactly the opposite?
Submitted by
chemrat
at 3/11/2008 2:07:42 PM- Oy Vey! No linkbacks! No wonder my Google page ranks are not all where they should be.
I didn't even know I was being aggregated via STLbloggers by another service.
In two other cases where I know I am being aggregated, I was asked for permission beforehand, the aggregates list my blog titke, main page and article permalinks, and I was given a link on the sites blogrolls. I was comfortable with that.
I certainly get readers from STLbloggers (thanks!), but have never noticed a referral from BNN. I check referring links and thank the site owners, so I would have come across it, I'm pretty sure.
Submitted by
Jack Burton
at 3/11/2008 2:14:05 PM- And therein lies the problem, chemrat.
Mastio steals content and doesn't link back.
WHY DON'T YOU LINK BACK, MASTIO?
It's indefensible
Submitted by
Dana from Mamalogues
at 3/11/2008 2:15:47 PM- Seems to me that Rebecca wasn't talking about just her experience. I think we both know that she was talking about all the other bloggers whose requests you've ignored or outright refused.
Submitted by
rev_matt
at 3/11/2008 2:17:31 PM- So Mastio is a content aggregator trying to make a buck off of selling ads on his really crappy FrontPage network. If his use of your feed violates the Creative Commons license you've published under then you've got an avenue for pursuing legal action. Otherwise it's pretty unlikely that he's doing anything wrong. Shady isn't wrong, it's just shady.
I'm pretty aware of the popular aggregators and I've never heard of BNN until now, so I don't think it's a real player of any import anyway. If it really bugs you, and you have access to the .htaccess file on your hosting service, then block him. http://myhostingreviews.com/htaccess-blocking-users.htm
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 2:17:56 PM- Melody,
I know we just aren't going to get anywhere when you make comments like this: "not because we are scraping their site for nothing more than ad revenue."
This simply assumes bad faith on my part and leaves no room to actually communicate with one another.
Neither does this: "I have done some research and have found the same response to your "project" in nearly every community you have decided to go into and exploit... starting with Virginia."
Let's see, BNN has built 80 some sites, there is one blogger who doesn't like us in Iowa and one in Utah. One blogger who doesn't like us in Georgia (if you read the record you'll find it was because I wouldn't include his girlfriend's sex blog in the state-wide public affairs site). A handful of other blogs in NJ, Virginia and NH are mad at BNN because they don't like our weekly influence rankings.
You have a fascinating definition of "nearly every."
Submitted by
Prologos
at 3/11/2008 2:20:11 PM- I asked to be added to BNN because (in my own stupidity) I did not realize you were profiting off of it. I naively took BNN as another stlbloggers, which it clearly is not. Also, I was apparently only removed at my request because I happened to request it before you changed your policy to deny these requests.
And yes, my comments were speaking to the collective experience. We bloggers are a community; we stand up for each other when used by the likes of you.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 2:22:58 PM- Jack,
Click the headline of any blog post excerpted at BNN... click the "..." at the end of any blog post at BNN and you will find yourself on the originating site.
Submitted by
rev_matt
at 3/11/2008 2:35:41 PM- If you aren't publishing under a CC license (or aren't publishing your feed under one) consider doing so.
An example:
http://backend.userland.com/creativeCommonsRssModule
A license that would legally prohibit aggregators from using your feed (note this is an all or nothing approach: you can't allow stlbloggers to use it and deny blognetnews under this scheme):
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License
http://creativecommons.org/license/results-one?q_1=2&q_1=1&field_commercial=n&field_derivatives=n&field_jurisdiction=us&field_format=&field_worktitle=&field_attribute_to_name=&field_attribute_to_url=&field_sourceurl=&field_morepermissionsurl=&lang=en_US&language=en_US&n_questions=3
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 2:45:45 PM- Rev_Matt,
It is perfectly acceptable to publish one license for use by the public and then privately offer a better license to anyone else on better terms at your total discretion.
However, nobody can write a site license that restricts "fair use rights." That's why they are called "rights."
Submitted by
Jack Burton
at 3/11/2008 2:51:10 PM- Well it wasn't working before!
Maybe your go.php got fixed
Submitted by
rev_matt
at 3/11/2008 2:57:07 PM- Fair use explicitly demands that it be for criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship, etc. Aggregating doesn't qualify under any of these standards.
Fair use doesn't supercede copyright law, it makes limited exception to it for very specific circumstances with the core criteria that such fair use doesn't diminish the value of the copyrighted material.
Note that I'm not criticising what you're doing with BNN (aesthetics aside), just pointing out falacies in your arguments. If someone hasn't put some sort of license agreement on their rss feed, the act of syndicating implies permission to use as you see fit. But that doesn't mean it falls under the legal doctrine of Fair Use.
Submitted by
rev_matt
at 3/11/2008 2:58:40 PM- Dave, you're right that it's entirely acceptable to offer one license to the general public and another privately to someone else. My point was that if you apply license X to your public RSS feed, that license applies to all consumers of that feed. You'd need to create another non-public feed to use a different license for approved partners.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 3:05:48 PM- Rev_Matt,
I appreciate the spirit if your comments and wish I had some way to resolve our disagreement. Before BNN launched, we took it to a First Amendment attorney and a intellectual property attorney to make sure our plans fit well within fair use.
BNN doesn't reduce the value of copyrighted material because you can't read more than 50 words of a post on BNN. More importantly, BNN makes posts easier to find which raises the value of the posts.
Jack,
Sorry it wasn't working right before. If you ever have a problem, feel free to write me a note at editor@blognetnews.com . I read everything that comes in.
Submitted by
Dana from Mamalogues
at 3/11/2008 3:31:35 PM- Dave, I think you may have been ill-advised. Copyright law clearly states that simply acknowledging source does not constitute permission; and it outlines the disparity of using such work for commercial or for non-profit/educational purposes. You are unarguably commercial. What you're doing does not fall under those definitions as set forth by the USPTO and I cannot imagine any legitimate legal counsel informing you otherwise.
The difference between what you do and what other aggregators do is that the others do not use that content as the SOLE means of supporting their advertising.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
If you wish to continue this bit of conversation with me you can do so by responding to the email I sent you wherein I asked you to remove my content from your website - which you've ignored up until this point.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 3:56:11 PM- Dana,
There isn't much point in continuing to play amateur lawyer with you. I hired the professional kind so BNN could stay clearly on the right side of the law. That's what we've done.
If you disagree, you are welcome to your opinion.
Submitted by
Dana from Mamalogues
at 3/11/2008 4:06:17 PM- We have to be amateur lawyers to protect our work from exploitation. You, of course, are free to disagree with the notion that what you do is exploitation.
(I, too, am rep'd by the "professional kind," as you noted earlier on the cc.)
Does this mean that you'll finally respond to my email and remove my content and trademark from your site? And the emails from other bloggers requesting the same?
Submitted by
Melody
at 3/11/2008 4:49:36 PM- Dave,
Throughout these comments, I feel there have been many claims asserted (for instance that MidwestBlogs was interested in competing with you and who was invovled) and refuted with facts to which I feel you have not responded only with additional confrontation. As you said to me, "we just aren't going to get anywhere when you make comments like this..."
So, in the hopes of getting somewhere, what is your intention and goal in creating an aggregator that posts - even if it is just a snippet - of content created by others without their knowledge or permission? And where do you honestly believe your goals for BNN interesects with the goals of the bloggers you have been talking to in this forum? Some of which have been demanding to have their content removed from your site? What interest does it serve, either you or the blogger, to keep agrregated content up on your site when the creator doesn't want it up there?
As I have been reading and re-reading these comments I feel like I am being argued in circles by a professional. I have read many valid and interesting points and questions being brought up but are being met with little more than argument (and suddenly dropped when refuted and it is time to move on to the next argument).
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 5:32:03 PM- Melody,
I too have felt that I have been being argued in circles. I'll answer you at more length after I fix tacos for the girls.
Submitted by
Jaelithe
at 3/11/2008 5:59:57 PM- Dave,
I agree with some who commented previously to say that the misleading layout of your site and certain language on your site falsely imply that participation is voluntary and that the blogs being featured on BNN are somehow affiliated with BNN. I believe you did this on purpose in a hamhanded attempt to trick the local blogging community into believing BNN is some sort of voluntary grassroots effort. When BNN is actually-- dare I say it? Astroturf! Plasticky, crunchy, ugly ASTROTURF.
It's utterly fascinating to me that you used to fight fake "grassroots" spamming of newspaper opinion columns with duplicate content on that old blog of yours that you shut down and deleted. Did you finally decide that if you couldn't beat 'em, you should join 'em?
When I emailed you a couple of days ago to suggest that BNN would not be considered a respectable site by the local blogging community unless it allowed bloggers to choose whether or not to participate, you told me that you had emailed every blogger on the list who posted an email on their blog to notify them that they had been listed on BNN. When I emailed several of the bloggers in the BNN "blogroll," all of whom I knew for a fact had email addresses available on their blogs, to check whether or not they had been notified, I discovered that only one out of the several I emailed had been contacted by you at all. When I emailed you back to confront you regarding this discrepancy, you failed to respond.
So it's pretty clear to me that you are a liar. So I don't think any of us should trust your word that your intention is to build community.
The worst part of this whole situation, Dave? If you had just asked us-- each one of us-- politely whether you could use our material to start a voluntary, community-based aggregation site? If you had asked us, politely, what sort of features we would like to see on such a site, and what sort of compensation opportunities, monetary or otherwise, we might like in return?
A number of us may have said yes. But when you come barging in to an existing community with a pre-set agenda based entirely on making yourself and your associates some easy money off of other people's work, and you start taking that work indiscriminately without asking most of the authors of that work for permission, or even letting them know what you're doing, well . . .
There's a right way to build a community blog aggregator, Dave, and there's a wrong way. You are not doing it the right way.
And I would suggest you stop insulting sites like STLBloggers and MidwestBlogs, real, homegrown, community sites that are not out to make a profit but instead are trying to make a positive difference in the community. You are not going to win any fans insulting homegrown efforts here in St. Louis.
You don't seem to realize it, Dave, but you've just sauntered into a unique environment: a small town of two million people.
You ever tried publicly insulting the favorite watering hole in a small town where you're a tourist, Dave? Imagine what would happen if you went into a teeny little Midwestern town wearing shiny big city shoes, and started telling everybody there you thought their favorite bar was a no-count dive.
Now imagine that again, only, multiply the angry fists pointed at you in response by about a hundred thousand, and you'll get an idea of what happens in St. Louis when someone tries to call us dirty names.
Submitted by
Melody
at 3/11/2008 6:02:14 PM- As a side note, I am not interested in hearing about the great traffic and exposure that is claimed to be had for bloggers... if we felt that way, more of us would have opted in... and for those who have been opted in without their knowledge, the one or two clicks a month they have gotten from being added to the BNN sea of snippets, mean nothing in comparison to the meaningful traffic that they have driven themselves from other networks and true networking they have done.
We all pay for our URL's and hosting and to support our sites. Any return we could see is being drained before "the user being exposed to our content" even hits our site... keep in mind as well (before I am condescended to), I recieve massive amounts of professional marketing newsletters and have a keen understanding of where advertisers are putting their money these days
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 6:31:12 PM- Melody,
After your 2nd to the last comment, I thought there was an opportunity for a discussion here, but after your latest comment and Jaelithe's contribution, I can see there's not much point. When people make things up out of whole cloth, as in "you'll get an idea of what happens in St. Louis when someone tries to call us dirty names." (What dirty names? On what planet?) there's little common ground to talk.
So where does that leave us? BNN is within its First Amendment rights to build sites that make local blogospheres searchable, make the combined feeds more useful to users and let readers know where the latest posts are. There's nothing to apologize for.
We're perfectly happy letting readers decide between whether a non-profit site or a for-profit site serves their needs better.
We're not going to go away and we're not going to respond further to your campaign of name-calling, smears and half-truths.
Submitted by
Dana from Mamalogues
at 3/11/2008 6:47:43 PM- Oh, so BNN is the victim? That's rich. You realize that there are other local aggregators that get far more traffic than BNN, yes? That's rhetorical. There's nothing for local bloggers to apologize for in asking you to stop using their work, sans permission, to support your advertising.
You never answered my question Dave: Are you going to acknowledge and respond to the emails from bloggers who've asked you to remove their content from BNN? Or are you going to keep dodging the question?
We're not going away, either.
Submitted by
Melody
at 3/11/2008 6:56:36 PM- I don't think there is much of a choice that bloggers are being asked to make... You started you charges on this site claiming MWB intended to compete with a feature that you haven't even built yet. MWB is not selling, aggregating, or even interested in competing with BNN... the project was started with goals in mind which are being excuted without making money off the membership and before this "community building" idea was introduced in St. Louis.
I also don't appreciate the indication that I was smearing your site, calling you names, etc for, what I think, is because you have no honest response to give as far as your goals are concerned... that is a smear campaign and a personal one at that, and I am highly offended.
Submitted by
jaelithe
at 3/11/2008 7:53:26 PM- Dave, you mocked STLBloggers for not having a search feature in this very comment thread. You falsely claimed that Dana was behind MWB, which she is not, and you claimed that MWB was deliberately created just to try to compete with BNN, which it was not; MWB is not a feed aggregator, and it is not, as far as I know, a profit-based venture. It is a community-building site, created by bloggers, for bloggers, that plans to help bloggers come together to address issues in the blogging community, INCLUDING, interestingly enough, issues like intellectual property theft.
You are the one mocking local sites and spreading misinformation. You are the one with a confirmed pattern of refusing to comply with bloggers' requests that they be removed from your site. And from the research I've done regarding BNN, I've found ample evidence that insulting local sites and disrespecting bloggers when someone dares to complain about or even just question the motive behind BNN has been your modus operandi ever since you started the first site.
I've frankly been shocked to discover that someone your age, with your professional background, would make a habit of acting so disrespectfully when confronted about ethical deficiencies in his business model. I imagine if you had acted this way toward your colleagues in the newspaper world, back before you decided to get into internet RE-publishing, you would not have gotten very far.
Remove the bloggers who have asked to be removed from BNN, and post a public apology on the site for not removing them when they initially asked. Then I'll think about letting you talk to me about respectful discourse.
And please, don't waste my time telling me all about how your lawyers say you don't legally have to remove bloggers who request it, and prattling on to me about technicalities of fair use that may let your site squeak by. Technorati lets bloggers opt out. Alltop lets bloggers opt out. Even GOOGLE will remove a site from their search system if the author of that site requests them to do so. These sites let authors opt-out because it's the right thing to do. Dana asked you to remove her blog from your site days ago, and you have not yet done so.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 8:19:55 PM- Jaelithe,
This is why trying to communicate with you is so fruitless. I didn't mock STLbloggers, I pointed out that BNN's existence adds something to the St. Louis blogosphere -- local search -- but you are so mad and your mind is so closed everything I say gets twisted in your mind into some kind of attack.
Midwest blogs is the site that is fiddling with their "about" page in the middle of our discussion. Too bad I didn't save a screen grab. And I never said that MWB was a feed aggregator -- I said it had "plans for city-by-city blog directories/community sites" which would compete with BNN. Compete does not mean "copy" it means target the same audience.
You are so angry that you can't be bothered to accurately portray what I said in this thread that anybody can check for themselves.
The idea that I am being insulting and disrespectful is simply mind boggling. What I have tried to do is politely disagree. I am sorry that I disagree with you, but that's why it is a big Internet.
I am the one who has been called a "liar," "hack" "Astroturf! Plasticky, crunchy, ugly ASTROTURF" and has had a all kinds of nasty stuff implied about what we do with no evidence. The very first comment in this thread suggested we were reprinting whole posts, something anybody who has spent two seconds on the site knows is false.
I'll let the readers decide who has been insulting and disrespectful and who deserves an apology.
Submitted by
tojosan
at 3/11/2008 8:36:49 PM- Dave,
Greetings from someone whose blogs you missed. Please keep it that way.
That said, can you share the exact process to have a blog removed from the BNN aggregation site? Is it an email or a form?
Also, do you allow blogs to perhaps come along side as partners with BNN? For profit specifically?
What can a blogger do to ensure their blog is not aggregated by BNN? In the case of wanting to avoid any issues.
Some blogs in St. Louis are under contract to not be aggregated or have their content presented along with certain ads. BlogHer network specifically enforces such prohibitions. In that case, it wouldn't be about any perceived wrongdoing but just to maintain current contracts.
Some blogs also are corporate blogs that might be aggregated and thus can't be involved in possible conflict of interest being presented alongside BNN advertisers.
If you have a few moments to address those questions, I'd be grateful.
Submitted by
Jaelithe
at 3/11/2008 8:58:58 PM- Dave,
I get mad when people lie to me. You either lied to me in that email, or several bloggers I've known in person for years have lied to me. I think I'll choose to believe my friends.
If you'd like me to provide proof, I can. You know this. You sent me the emails in question. Would to like me to print your assertion that you were contacting bloggers here? Here you go:
"I build each of our sites by hand, looking at each blog myself and gathering all the publicly available email addresses that I can find for the authors. Upon launch and sometimes before launch, I email all of those people with an explanation of what we are doing, how it works and what we hope they will get out of it."
That is a direct quote from you, from the email you sent me.
Let's hold a poll. How many here on STLBloggers who have email contact info on their blogs have had their content scraped by BNN without being notified?
I personally know of at least five local bloggers who were NOT notified by you that you had decided to use their content. Some of these bloggers only discovered their content was being scraped by BNN because I emailed them to ask them whether you had asked permission.
I didn't call YOU astroturf, BTW. I called your site astroturf. I highly doubt you yourself are constructed of green plastic.
And I would propose that you are in fact the one targeting other people's audiences. Dana had an audience of thousands before you ever started scraping her content to put on your site. I would propose that you are attempting to compete with bloggers for their own audiences, using the bloggers' own work as a lure.
Submitted by
Dana from Mamalogues
at 3/11/2008 9:09:11 PM- Still haven't answered my question Dave! So I'm taking that as a no, you refuse to remove copyrighted content and trademarks from your site even when explicitly asked. Right?
I did get a screen grab.
http://pics.mamalogues.com/stupidcrap.jpg
I think Melody tried to tell you that she and two others created it, but you were too busy trying to smear me and manipulate things to your advantage, again. It's moot, because their thing is non-profit. I know that's like a bizarre set-up to you, but it's an actual business model.
Answer my question here since you refuse to acknowledge anyone's emails.
Submitted by
Prologos
at 3/11/2008 9:19:54 PM- Dave, I second Tojosan's request that you answer his questions. Specifically, what does any and every blogger who wishes to have his/her blog removed from your site have to do? Do you believe every blogger has the right to not only make such a request but also have that request honored?
Submitted by
jyoseph
at 3/11/2008 9:29:42 PM- I third tojosan... enough jabber, let's hear some actual answers.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 9:51:53 PM- Tojosan,
All they have to do is send me an email. As Prologos will confirm (and indeed has confirmed above).
Second, on your profit question, our current plans are to get BNN to the break even point by this summer.
At the moment, a number of local bloggers on some of our state and city sites are handling the editing for those sites, our second step will be to pay those bloggers a percentage of the revenue from the sections they edit (primarily by adding new blogs and removing blogs that have died off).
Simultaneously, we are trying to develop a stream of advertising that would let us offer bloggers a significantly better CPM than they are currently getting for advertising on their own sites by selling sites grouped into topical and geographic categories. Unfortunately, we don't have that figured out to the point we are sure we can offer a better deal to the vast majority of blogs, which is why I haven't discussed it. I'd rather not promise something since I am not sure when I will be able to deliver it.
As for your third question about contract etc. A contract between two parties (blogher and you for instance) cannot be binding on the rights of a third party (fair use rights of BNN).
Dana,
I have refused to acknowledge your emails because the very first time you contacted me, you brought a lawyer into it and before I even had time take another look at your blog and consider exactly how to reply to you, I was informed by another St. Louis blogger that you were sending badmouthing emails all over the St. Louis blogosphere. As a general rule, you'll find people much more willing to give you exactly what you want when you ask for it without the lawyers and the lectures. Indeed that's exactly what happened to Prologos when she asked to be added AND when she asked to be removed.
And finally Jaelithe,
The world is not the simple either/or place you think it is. We have launched BNN in exactly the same way 80 times over the last 18 months. You can find blog posts mentioning getting an email from me about the launch of a BNN site all over the place.
Is it possible I missed some emails in St. Louis I should have picked up? Yep. I make mistakes every day (see typos above) Is it possible some people just deleted emails that came from someone they didn't recognize? Yep, I delete dozens of those every day in my personal email box. Is it possible that some got sent to the spam filter? Yep, not a week goes by when my yahoo and gmail filters don't misclassify something.
Yet you go right for the liar thing. I doubt you would be happy with your reputation being trashed by someone based on such flimsy evidence.
Submitted by
Dana from Mamalogues
at 3/11/2008 10:10:32 PM- Dave,
Are you delusional? The "badmouthing emails" is a total crock. I caught you in one lie already, give the smear tactic a rest and walk lightly.
You took my content without my permission; you completely disregarded any courtesy to me in that respect so don't act like you were affronted that I immediately responded to explore my legal options. What did you expect? An invitation to tea? This is the real world - and this is what happens when what you do is possible infringement.
I sent you an email asking you to take down my work. You're refusing. As for the condescending advice, I think you'll find that it's easier to work with people when you're not scraping their content in a pathetic attempt to make a buck.
Submitted by
Prologos
at 3/11/2008 10:21:45 PM- Yes, my blog was removed from BNN per my request. But Dana's has not been. And I can't help but wonder if it has less to do with her cc'ing her lawyer, and more to do with her blog garnering you more advertisment revenue potential. Because to imply that her request has not been acted upon solely because she sent a copy of her request to her lawyer is outrageous.
Submitted by
tojosan
at 3/11/2008 10:23:52 PM- Dave,
Does fair use encompass making a profit from someone else's work? I don't believe so. Fair use is about consumers not other businesses. In your case, being a business, does fair use really apply. Several recent law suits would indicate otherwise. Most pointedly regarding works published on the internet and used without permission.
Not accusing you of doing anything illegal, but as an interested party, I'd love to see in detail how the 1st Amendment and Fair Use apply in the situation when a for profit company is using content without consent.
Personally, I love the idea of an aggregator, but only one in which I can directly benefit in equal measure for what I bring to the table.
However, if you were to only post ads with bloggers that had opted in, I think that makes it a mute point.
Perhaps your intentions are honorable but your execution is flawed. For example, I couldn't find the email addy to remove a blog on the site. Yet the link to sign up is easy to spot. Another example, the site is not the most flattering venue for anyone's work to be displayed. This doesn't reflect on you personally, but many bloggers go to great lengths to create a certain look and feel that represents them and their blog.
And on the contract thing. Again Fair Use doesn't allow me or anyone else to profit from someone else's work unless specifically permitted. For example, all of my photography is Creative Commons and specifically a license that does not permit any commercial use. Similarly, many of my fellow bloggers are using Creative Commons licensing, which is legally binding, and is not permitting of commercial use.
To continue in that vein, Fair Use does permit reviews, parodies, and such but not use of said content directly nor representing said work as one own. That's not an accusation about you, but in the vein of saying what you're doing is most likely to be perceived as outside fair use by many.
Anything you could do to allay those concerns would go a long way towards winning you some friends.
Of course, what's several dozen bloggers not participating? Why give them grief but instead free them from participation without hassle? As a show of good faith?
Heck, I'd just as soon not have to hear about this mess. But since it's coming and the buzz has started, it will be hard to avoid.
Regards
Submitted by
Jaelithe
at 3/11/2008 10:46:14 PM- You know, if, when I emailed a bunch of bloggers to ask whether they had been contacted by you, even just half had said yes, while the other half said no, I might well have assumed some emails got sent to a spam folder, or that you just "missed a few." But considering that only one of the several I emailed said that she had been notified, and considering that you contacted that blogger specifically to request a list of other bloggers from the same genre whose content you could scrape, I drew my own conclusions.
If it was really just a mistake, why did you stop talking to me when I told you that other bloggers' assertions contradicted your statement?
If all it takes for removal from BNN is an email to you, then, why did you not remove Dana's site immediately when she asked?
Why did you refuse to remove the blog InMuscatine when the owner of that blog asked to be removed from BNN Iowa? Why did you refuse to remove the blog Not Larry Sabato when the owner of that blog requested that you remove him in Virginia? Have you changed your policy since these incidents took place?
If Dana has been sending "badmouthing emails" all around town, why do you want her content on your site? If one of the purposes of your site is, as you say, to help bloggers get more traffic, why would you want to help bring more traffic to a blogger who was "badmouthing" you? Are you keeping her content just to spite her, because she sent you a standard notice of trademark infringement?
And if BNN is such a great site, why does it need Dana's content to succeed? And if you're worried about the legality of using a blogger's registered trademark for profit without her permission, why didn't you just remove Dana's site immediately and apologize when she sent you the first cease and desist?
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/11/2008 11:13:53 PM- I stopped responding to you because your arguments kept repeating themselves and once I said what I had to say and you had said what you hade to say, I didn't see the point of going into reruns.
I didn't remove Dana's site immediately because I always move cautiously when lawyers are invoked.
As for InMuscatine and Not Larry Sabato, they are on state public affairs aggregators which are a far different beast. They write for the purpose of impacting the public debate. As the blogosphere grows increasingly influential, it is a legitimate news function to monitor what is said on sites like those (note that NLS is a Dem and IM is a Republican) -- they are news.
It is interesting that you bring up NLS, because if you follow that whole sorry fracas through to the beginning, you will find that its source is BNN's Influence Index which three left-leaning liberal Virginia blogs found to be offensive because NLS was not always in the #1 or #2 spot.
As for Dana, I am a big believer in the First Amendment, so her being critical of me or anything BNN does is hardly disqualification for being on the site. In the journalism world, criticism is just something you get used to. As for bringing traffic to her site, I think that the more opinions one gets, the more likely one is to come to the right conclusions -- that's why I believe in promoting blogs and the blogosphere even when it is not in my short term interest.
And as I have said, repeatedly, since fair use is part of the First Amendment, I don't regard its aggressive use as anything requiring an apology.
You might want to take a look at the recent fracas over snappedshot.com and bloggers rights to publish photos for the purpose of critical analysis of the news value of ap photography. Expansive fair use has important benefits for bloggers.
Submitted by
Jaelithe
at 3/11/2008 11:34:30 PM- I don't see you writing any critical analysis of blogs on BNN. If you were actually using each and every one of the excerpts you scrape in a serious, original, WRITTEN critical analysis, I would have no beef with you. But there is no original text content on the BNN St. Louis site, except for your about page, which hardly counts.
Submitted by
Sarahlynn
at 3/12/2008 12:37:39 AM- Responding to Dana's original question only: I don't have a big problem with it. I doubt I'll see a whole lot of new traffic because of my snips on the site, but I don't think it's hurting me, either.
I come from a publishing background, where short exerpts with appropriate citations are legal, so this probably has shaped my views.
Submitted by
rev_matt
at 3/12/2008 6:47:36 AM- Two points Dave:
1 - claiming you're are within your 'First Amendment Rights' is as baseless as claiming Fair Use. The government is not trying to restrict your right to free speech, so the First Amendment is irrelevant to this situation.
2 - claiming that you're going to offer better rates than Google AdWords (which is what most of the bloggers are using) is delusional at best.
I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, but your responses to everyone show that you are not an honest broker and have no intent of addressing real questions, only in getting your way.
Submitted by
Jim
at 3/12/2008 7:40:20 AM- There's a fun and easy way to handle this.
If you're in BNN's aggregator, write a post, without a hyperlink, complaining about Blog Net News and make sure it's in the first forty words.
You can also add a one line, italicized statement that says, "if you're reading this at Blog Net News, know that Dave Mastio doesn't have permission to steal my content."
He can't cut out your words without kiilling your entire field, and registering your dislike of him, without providing a link, might convince him to give it up.
And Dave - it's bad business to come in and insult the communities you wish to serve. My question is how you have time to get into fights on these comments when you claim you don't have time to improve your current site.
Also - your influence rankings are a joke. They only rank what happens on your site, which is why only the smallest bloggers participate, and end up ranked so high.
Submitted by
Jaelithe
at 3/12/2008 8:10:43 AM- Sarahlynn, interestingly enough, my educational background is in literary criticism, so, I don't really have an issue with people using short excerpts in the context of academic discourse, arts criticism, cultural criticism, or even comparative advertising. I understand the value of that sort of use.
What I specifically have a problem with is the following:
1.) Mastio is presenting the bloggers on his site as though they were somehow affiliated with his site, calling their blogs "BNN Blogs" and putting them in a blogroll that links, not directly to the original blogs, but to the excerpts on the BNN site. This may cause readers to mistakenly associate bloggers who are being listed there without their permission with the BNN site. Which also means those bloggers could be associated with advertising they have no control over and receive no revenue from, and with content (from other blogs) that they may find inappropriate or offensive.
2.) Mastio's site is not providing original content in the form of written analysis of the local blogsosphere or original commentary on blogging news-- 99% of the text on his site is written by someone else, and he is not compensating any of those authors, nor is he asking their permission to be included.
3.) The excerpts are of a length that they CAN hurt your traffic, specifically by competing for search engine rankings with your own site. Sites like BNN make their money from ad revenue. One of the best ways to attract visitors and therefore ad revenue is to have a frequently updated, text-rich site that will draw in a variety of search engine users. And one of the easiest ways to build a constantly updated text-rich site without having to write any of your own content is to just take content from other people without permission.
4.) BNN is scraping not only text, but photos from the blogs it lists, which does not fall under fair use in the same way as text exerpts. BNN shows fairly large versions of the photos-- NOT thumbnails. And BNN hotlinks to the photos, which means that, rather than hosting them on the BNN site, BNN is essentially stealing bandwidth from the original site every time someone looks at one of those photos, which could be a problem for bloggers who are hosting their own sites instead of using a big site like Blogger. Even Google has gotten in legal trouble for taking photos from commercial sites without permission and refusing to let those sites opt out-- look up the Google v. Perfect Ten case.
5.) BNN has a history of refusing authors' opt-out requests.
6.) Bloggers in many other cities have complained that they feel BNN's ranking system is mysterious and unfair, and noted that it often seems to disproportionately favor blogs that espouse political views similar to Mastio's. Mastio has refuted these claims, but as far as I know he has not provided any evidence to show his rating system is impartial, citing the need to protect his proprietary system from being, ahem, COPIED. In any event, when bloggers who feel they have been unfairly treated by the ratings system have requested to be removed from BNN, Mastio has refused to remove them.
I am not against all aggregators, and I am certainly, CERTAINLY not against properly attributed fair use of text excerpts in general. But sites like Mastio's walk a fine line between fair use and exploitation, and I believe he has crossed that line.
Submitted by
Kristen King
at 3/12/2008 8:30:16 AM- This is an interesting discussion to say the least. A couple of important points that need to be clarified:
1. Fair use is NOT a right. Fair Use is a defense when a copyright holder denies a reasonable request to use content, like quoting two lines from a novel in a book review. Fair Use allows educational, critical, satirical, and other reasonable uses and is dependent on a number of factors, including whether the user is earning a profit on the use. Frequently the fact that the user is earning money on the use means that it's not Fair Use. I am not a copyright or IP lawyer, but I do believe this situation is a candidate for being denied the defense of Fair Use given the ad revenue angle and the fact that the bloggers whose content you are using are not willing participants.
2. Regardless of the "benefits to bloggers" of their content appearing in multiple locations, the bloggers themselves are the copyright holders and have the inherent right as the owner of the world to decline someone else's "benefits." Using their content against their will and saying, "It's for your own good!" really doesn't fly, as I'm sure you're beginning to see. And the whole "for your own good" argument is really damaged by the lack of links back to the original blog.
3. RSS feeds are intended for blog readers to be able to read all of their favorite blogs in one place (eg, Google Reader), NOT to make it easier for other people to pull or scrape content into their own websites and blogs and profit from it. Whether something is possible has no bearing on whether it is legally or ethically acceptable.
4. There is at least one legal way to populate your site with others' content and make money on it. It's called a licensing agreement. You purchase a license (permission) to use content from a copyright holder under certain conditions and with compensation to the copyright holder.
For those who are interested, here's an article that explains the differences and similarities between plagiarism, copyright infringement, and fair use, and what they all mean in practical terms:
http://tinyurl.com/25qej5
And here's another article on what to do when someone steals your work:
http://tinyurl.com/32rw9e
I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but I am in the practice of calling it like I see it, and Dave, I think it would be to your benefit to sit down with your "professional" lawyer and seriously evaluate the legality and long-term viability of this business model.
Best,
Kristen King
Submitted by
Jack Burton
at 3/12/2008 9:39:16 AM- He's linking photos, not thumbnailing them?
Dave, you are a dingdong. And if you are linking and not databasing thumbnails, you're stealing bandwidth.
Hey everyone, you can fix that by having any site that hotlinks your pics display a different pic. Most people make a pic that says, "This person is stealing pictures and is a big poophead" (for example).
Here's how!
http://blog.xaviermedia.com/2008/01/27/protect-your-pictures-and-prevent-bandwidth-theft/
http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess10.shtml
Dave, if you don't fix that, I can imagine your site displaying waving penises and WORSE (goatse) instead of the image you're thieving.
That's net ettiquite 101, fool.
Submitted by
John
at 3/12/2008 10:04:26 AM- Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing has an article today in Information Week providing 17 tips to companies/websites who *want* to be blogged about. One of these tips is not to be worried about hotlinking, because if bandwidth is expensive for you, you need to find a different host.
(My host, for example, offers unlimited bandwidth.)
He suggests putting your URL on your photos/pictures (unobtrusively in a corner somewhere or something) so that when it is hotlinked it serves as advertising for your site, and allows the viewer to find the original.
Submitted by
tojosan
at 3/12/2008 1:16:53 PM- Disclaimer: Dave and I have exchanged personal emails.
That said. Let's make sure folks to keep the conversation about opinions and facts and not attacks on Dave or Dave on us.
Shouting louder isn't a useful thing.
Name calling doesn't help.
There are some good posts in here, but there are many that are more aggressive than missive.
Anyone that wants to be removed from BNN, here's the email: editor@blognetnews.com
No need to start with lawyers. Just send the email.
I'm assuming from his emails that Dave will be very responsive to said emails for removal.
This discussion would be more productive if some real experts would weigh in though. I believe that none of the parties involved is such an expert.
In other words, be polite and respectful..everyone.
Submitted by
J
at 3/12/2008 2:34:44 PM
Submitted by
Jack Burton
at 3/12/2008 2:35:39 PM- John,
Bandwidth is cheap, but hotlinking just isn't cricket!
Submitted by
Phil Barron
at 3/13/2008 2:26:25 PM- Just to add this to the record: I was indeed notified by Dave via email that he had added my blog Waveflux to BNN/Missouri:
"Nice read. If you're Ok with it, I've added you to www.blognetnews.com/missouri and the new St. Louis-focused site we launched this week."
Submitted by
dayngr
at 3/13/2008 10:32:08 PM- Stealing is stealing and when you make money from someone else's writing well, that's just gonna get you a one way ticket on the karma credit express.
Sounds like everyone here needs to go in on the same lawyer and have him send a nice little request to have you removed. Then go get a Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) ASAP!
Submitted by
GeekMommy
at 3/13/2008 10:49:31 PM- Sounds like the easiest solution for the nonce is to simply preface each blog post with something like "If you're reading this anywhere other than (blogurl.com) - you're helping someone else take money out of my pocket by reproducing my work without permission. Please don't feed the aggregator! Go to (blogurl.com) to read my work!"
Less than 50 words... gets the point across.
Submitted by
John
at 3/14/2008 11:26:05 AM- Actually, that doesn't quite work, as that would appear on non-advertising feed readers (such as bloglines). People have rss feeds so that their readers can read their posts elsewhere. Its the "making money" part of it all that is annoying to some.
Another thing for everyone to consider - you might view it differently, you might not - but individuals *can* subscribe to rss feeds so that they arrive in their email.
And if that email happens to be gmail (or I am sure other email providers too) there will be ads. Google *will* be making money, per se, off of your RSS feeds.
Submitted by
ben
at 3/14/2008 12:00:51 PM- This discussion aggregated (across the blogs) over here: http://pornitics.com/bnn/.
Submitted by
Livingdead
at 3/14/2008 2:21:25 PM- Well, at least you're not stupid enough to link me. Or i'm not important enough.
P.S. Don't. I'm very bad for your advertisers.
Submitted by
Dave Mastio
at 3/14/2008 5:37:25 PM- Dana,
Since this seems to have become personal between us, I wanted to apologize for linking you to the Midwestblogs thing. My notes were in error (obviously caused by me) confirmed by a cached page from a source I trust. I hate to have my facts wrong, so I apologize.
Submitted by
cybrpunk
at 3/18/2008 10:40:40 PM- I'd just like to say: I'm really glad I missed this whole debate.
Whew... glad I got that off my chest.
Thanks for the heads up! It is a bit strange- we're writing for free so that someone else can make money of our our collective, collected works. On the other hand, we may be getting broader exposure for our blogs in this way (though I've seen no evidence of it, and I do check).
It is certainly a violation of copyright law if the entire posts are being used (or even a violation of creative commons 3.0, etc., if money is being made) if done without our permission (and I was never asked).
I suggest that a cease and desist letter is in order.