Comments on: BlogStars – Infringing CopyRight since 2005

By: AmBlogger » Blog Archive » ProBlogger talks to AmBlogger!

AmBlogger » Blog Archive » ProBlogger talks to AmBlogger! — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 05:55:47 +0000

[...] BlogStars – Infringing CopyRight since 2005 [...]

By: Norty Pig

Norty Pig — Sun, 08 May 2005 00:28:53 +0000

I’m concerned though that people might write on blogs and ‘expect’ full legal copyright protection. Isn’t it about community, sharing of ideas? I write one blog and have a links blog and short of it appearing on a shelf in my local bookshop I’m not really worried about how they use the information or links there.

My point is just I’d hate an overprotective approach taken to information on the internet… it was created with hyperlinking to information as its key element… so I guess what I’m saying is if you don’t want it stolen, used or referred to perhaps the information is better not placed on the net in the first place…

Just a thought not a criticism.. the lines are quite grey of course.

By: BlogStars » Blog Archive » Requesting approvations

BlogStars » Blog Archive » Requesting approvations — Sat, 07 May 2005 09:37:40 +0000

[...] easy to find contact email in some Blog… (as it was here till yesterday like Darren said, now I’ve placed our email address clear in s [...]

By: jim

jim — Fri, 06 May 2005 17:10:17 +0000

I read that post that tracked back here and I think they’re handling it in a very professional manner. It does sound like they weren’t trying to scam anything, just innocently trying to create a syndicate blog.

By: BlogStars » Blog Archive » Are we infringing Copyright?

BlogStars » Blog Archive » Are we infringing Copyright? — Fri, 06 May 2005 13:12:16 +0000

[...] laquo; ProBlogger

Are we infringing Copyright?

As Justin says, there is a lot of gray area in these laws [...]

By: dandyna

dandyna — Fri, 06 May 2005 12:27:28 +0000

yeah, i guess you’re right about your content and they’re using ads to gain money themself. I know. But actually, i don’t think people who’s managing Blogstars means to redistribute as their own or such. They clearly state the source is your blog.

By: Tinus

Tinus — Fri, 06 May 2005 10:20:36 +0000

‘nofollow’ is an attribute, not a tag! :-)

By: Michele M

Michele M — Fri, 06 May 2005 08:14:58 +0000

I’m present too… I hope they send me some clicks….

By: Darren

Darren — Fri, 06 May 2005 02:55:03 +0000

You’re probably dandyna – I’m no doubt coming off here as angrier than I actually am. As I say above I’m ‘not overly concerned’ about it on a personal level. After all they do have links back to my blog (unlike others I’ve pointed out previously).

I just think its important to highlight this sort of thing because it is becoming more common.

Obviously this blog isn’t that big in terms of traffic so wont have much impact – but what happens which it happens on a larger scale?

I also worry about the idea of duplicate content. Not such a big issue for me of course with excerpt feeds – but it is potentially not a good deal for those that its publishing full feeds of.

Anyway – I’m not too worked up about it. Just thought it’d be an interesting discussion.

By: jim

jim — Fri, 06 May 2005 02:51:55 +0000

dandyna,
Cool yourself? Publishing someone else’s work, in full, and then slapping your own ads on it is plagiarism when that person explicitly states that you can’t use it for commercial reasons.

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 06 May 2005 02:47:35 +0000

Thanks for clearing that up, Darren. I looked up some info on Fair Use in regards to copyright…There seems to be a lot of gray area in these laws. I don’t think there’s any doubt blogstars is not “fairly using” the articles they acquire via RSS. My question about breakingnewsblog.com was the fact that your site is made up entirely of other authors’ works. I guess everyones ideas about what is ethical varies. And, I agree with Danger – they are breaking the law of tasteful web design.

By: dandyna

dandyna — Fri, 06 May 2005 02:46:33 +0000

c’mon, cool yourself, that blog is using ads, and you’re as well. it’s not a personal attack, just, relax, and enjoy the fact you’re the first foreign blogstar listed

By: incorporated subversion » Archive » To publish full RSS or not to publish full RSS

Fri, 06 May 2005 02:14:57 +0000

[...] s unsubscribe / subscribe policy of favouring full feeds. But then in pops another Darren piece on copyright infringement by blogstars: “Bl [...]

By: Darren

Darren — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:47:58 +0000

quite amusing to see the title of this post now as the first thing people see when they come to their site! :-)

By: Danger Stevens

Danger Stevens — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:46:41 +0000

The worst part about that site is they use the ghastly Kubrick default theme. I mean, if you’re going to steal, steal some decent CSS while you’re at it.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:39:02 +0000

WHOIS entry. Book that flight and we'll do a road trip. I'll bring the baseball bat! Here's their webhost.

By: Darren

Darren — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:36:08 +0000

Good question Justin,

The difference is that I use short quotes and excerpts from articles or reviews an not full ones. I also only use excerpts from some of their work and not every article they post.

For me it comes down to a ‘fair use’ policy. There are laws around the idea of what is fair – how you can use quotes etc – we stick to them as far as I can tell.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:35:10 +0000

Free-loading, non-contributing bastards! They gotta be some ‘internet marketing’ whores who are drunk on ebooks and their own self-inflated guru-dom. Can you tell what script/domain is grabbing the feed? Oh never mind – you use FeedBurner like I do. If they were hitting your server directly you could probably block by referring IP.

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:33:21 +0000

BTW, How is what they’re doing with http://www.upcome.com any different from what you’re doing with breakingnewsblog? You publish full reviews and articles from sources like Cnet, etc. Do you think that authors who write for websites like CNet should not have the same copyright protection that you do? And, do you not make money off those articles/reviews? You have ads on those pages.

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:23:51 +0000

You can go to the http://www.upcome.com home page and click “your ad here” underneath the ads on the right column. It’ll take you to the AdBrite homepage where you can contact them through AdBrite. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just give you their wordpress login info. :)