Archives for January 2006

There’s another issue

January 18, 2006 by Michael Boyle

There’s another issue

on the table related to TopTenSources.com that is also very instructive in the context of copyright legalities and such. There is evidence of questionable faith on the part of the company (Newsilike Media Group) in that they do not seem to respect CC licenses. Considering their Original Bloggers page, I noted that they re-publish the feed from Matt Haughey’s blog, which is published under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. That license clearly states that “If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.” Well, TopTenSources has done exactly that, but have not published the resulting work (the entire site) under the same license – they assert copyright.

I agree with John Palfrey and the other experts who write on this field that this is a critically important issue. But it’s never going to be solved when even companies like the Newsilike Media Group with such expert and well-regarded supporters as Palfrey don’t take it seriously. Actions speak louder than words. Or blog posts.

Update: You know this if you read the comments here, but if you don’t I think it bears mentioning on the index pages of this blog. John Palfrey noted the issue I raised in this post and asked the company to address it, and so they have done. I think that’s a good demonstration of the kind of leadership that will serve us all well as Web 2.0 is invented.

There’s a lot of buzz again

January 18, 2006 by Michael Boyle

There’s a lot of buzz again

about syndication feeds and copyright, in particular, about the rights of other sites to wholesale re-publish information that appears in feeds. John Palfrey of the Berkman Center at Harvard joins the issue most centrally, from the perspective of a reasonable and interested party to the discussion.

Palfrey describes a site called Top10 Sources that has editors who have a certain expertise in a subject. These editors go out on the web and compile a list of the ten most important blogs in one of dozens of areas of interest. Then they turn on the flow from those sites’ syndication feeds and contact the blogger to note that they’ve been included.

Palfrey’s discussion of the legalities of it are interesting and the further discussion of the fact that there may be ethical issues outside of the purely legal question is equally important. The problem is that there is a fundamental error that occurs before any of these issues are joined. Palfrey seems to assume that asking for permission in advance would be impossible – but he gives no evidence nor does he advance any logical argument as to why this may be true. As is the case with Google books, this point is simply to be assumed to be true.

For me, opt-out is fundamentally unethical in this context and further it’s evidence (as far as I’m concerned) that the company who rolls out with such a strategy is unprepared to do business and quite likely doesn’t really understand what their business is in the first place. To suggest that sending a selected blogger an email asking if they’re like to be included before re-publishing their feed is too difficult is a tough proposition to take seriously.

Before the issue of copyright even arises, then, prove to me that there’s a good reason why NOT to ask people to opt-in before publishing their feeds. Then we can have a discussion about copyright.

On this issue, see also Mike Rundle in BusinessLogs, Adam Green’s Darwinian Web, and several posts by Om Malik. There is a pretty wide range of opinion on this subject.

Also in the Star:

January 16, 2006 by Michael Boyle

Also in the Star:

Cory Doctorow’s op-ed from Saturday: Trademark political shenanigans. On Copyright law, corporate political funding, and artist-unfriendly DRM.

Today’s

January 16, 2006 by Michael Boyle

Today’s

Toronto Star editorial: Political actors overlook culture. See also this piece from Kevin Garland, head of the National Ballet of Canada.

There’s a huge stink

January 16, 2006 by Michael Boyle

There’s a huge stink

in the air about James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces and the fact that although it is being marketed as a memoir, which many people assume is a synonym for “autobiography”, Frey seems to have taken some liberties with the “truth”. However, when the book was first published, the following appeared in an interview with Frey:

Speaking of memoirs, are there any autobiographies or memoirs that you’re particularly fond of?
I love Charles Baudelaire. I love Celine and Henry Miller. I love Charles Bukowski and Pat Conroy and Tim O’Brien and Brett Easton Ellis. None of these guys actually wrote memoirs, but they all wrote about themselves. Though I used my real name, I consider my work in the same tradition.

I think if people are upset, they should be upset at the marketing people who convinced Frey to play along with this “nonfiction” business. They’ve likely screwed up his long-term career. On the other hand, he has seemed quite eager to play along – I don’t think anyone has put anything over on the guy.