What Is Fair Aggregation?
Watching Sharon Waxman and Michael Wolff bicker about what proper aggregation is on CNN was enough to make me sick. Sharon is looking for credibility and would actually need to learn something about the industry other than how to self-promote to get it and Wolff’s claim – which I believe he believes – that his first duty is to his readers – as though this excuses stealing content – is the kind of rubbish with which heroin dealers and other criminals are most comfortable.
(Ironically, Waxman embeds the CNN appearance, which they allow, and doesn’t ever link to Kurtz’ web page in her ridiculous follow-up blog.)
Movie City News has been in the aggregation business for seven and a half years. We knew what was fair aggregation then and we know what fair aggregation is now. It’s really simple.
Headlines are fair. A very brief – two sentences or less – illustrative pull-quote, not the entire heart of the story, is fair. Link it to the source. Try to find the original reporting, if it is a reported story.
Isn’t that simple? Four little rules.
And after Sharon accused Michael Wolff of stealing – which I agree that he does – when she does almost exactly the same thing, is it some sort of admission of guilt that suddenly – for the first time ever in its history – The Wrap’s front page has not a single link to another outlet nor a single page linked to their front page that credits any other outlet for the content? Why change the methodology all of a sudden? Is this a standard or public relations?
This still doesn’t, however, keep Wrap Staff for taking credit for foreign box office numbers that The Wrap clearly stole from Screen International and their reporter, Jeremy Kay.
Of course, The Wrap philosophy seems to be that if others of note are doing it, it’s fair game. So when Box Office Mojo gets its foreign numbers from media sources without credit, it must be okay for The Wrap to do it. Likewise, Huffington Post’s thieving ways are the basis for her thinking it’s okay for her to do likewise.
It’s really simple. Rules are not based on whether you get enough hits from the aggregator, though ironically Waxman thanks Drudge for his linkage… when, in fact, she does not emulate him, as he doesn’t steal content as she does.
The rule, conceptually is, are you reprinting enough of the originating outlet’s content so that, in most cases, your reader is sated before clicking through to that originating source. If you are giving them enough that they need no more – which is to say, no more than the gist of the story via a well-written headline – you are stealing the originating outlet’s page view, replacing it with your own.
If The Wrap is changing its own rules and will no longer build pages that contain graphs from other outlets with a link below, great. I will be thrilled to publicly applaud the change. But given that it has been, most days, about half of the pages they created, I don’t trust that this will last. But I will keep an eye out.
I learned my lesson about the fairness of aggregation about 15 years ago, when I built a little Miami Dolphins fan site shortly after AOL added www access. I didn’t rewrite the stories of others. I knew that was theft even then. But I did built a site that used my site’s frame and popped in content from online Dolphin content sites like the Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald. Their ads appeared. I had none. But I got a note from the Sun Sentinel pretty quickly. They felt that I was using their web site’s content and essentially, double-branding it with my frame.
And they were right.
I wasn’t happy. I had a few hundred readers. I wasn’t cutting their ads out. Why were they picking on me?
But they were right.
What Michael Wolff said on Reliable Sources suggests why Old Media types don’t get this. They are used to having a world of support available at no cost to them. Their papers pay for it, whether it’s the AP wire or Factiva, etc. Historically, journalists have built stories on other journalists’ stories. But the web changed that dynamic completely, as historically, the work of the journalist whose work you are building on was not available to your reader. So, if the Washington Post was working on a story that started at the Miami Herald, even when there was not a “broke the news” mention, there was the reality that readers in Manhattan didn’t have the alternative choice of reading the Herald… so no harm, no foul.
We now have the choice of reading virtually everything. Brave new world. New rules… for a reason.
And you know, intellectual property is not just “breaking news.” At Movie City News, we have served as an assignment desk for movie journalists for over 7 years. And that’s great. But it becomes aggravating as hell when people scan our front page, take every link that interests them, and repurpose those links as their own found links as though we didn’t exist.
One idiot used to accuse me of thinking we owned the news we found. i don’t and I never did. But if you are giving credit to everyone but us, you are doing us an unkindness… and taking unfair advantage of the work that my staff works hard to do each day. Of course, we have always been kinder to our theoretical competitors than they have been to us. Different entry for a different day.
But I will say, I had a nice man come up to me recently and tell me how he downloaded a DP/30 interview and put it on YouTube in 3 sections to fit YT’s 10 minute limit. He was proud of it and seemed to think I should be honored. And on some level, I was. But at base, the fact that he stole my content and – however innocently – repurposed it in a form that I, as the person creating (and paying for) the content, chose not to offer it in, was horrifying. And scores of my interviews have been similarly “honored.”
Two graphs, 5 headlines, 30 minutes of video… all theft. Sorry, that’s just the reality.
On a side note, Tim Gray wrote a passionate piece in Variety this weekend about the negative attention they have suffered over there lately and the war between The Web and Print. And I have to say, besides the silly cheap shots, I agree with much of what he had to say and feel his pain. He really doesn’t quite get the web, but in an exchange he offers about “bloggers” prioritizing being first over being right, regardless of the cost to the reader, he offers the fact that he does understand the responsibility of being a journalist. (I’m not linking because linking to a blocked site is stupid.)
Finally… the saddest thing about all this backbiting has been the weak swipes from one site to the other about the size of one site, the scope of another, and the importance that always seems to reside with the beholder. I have gotten caught up in this at times… and won’t do so anymore. I will write about the ethical issues, but not about people’s business that I do not know with any factual certainty.
One thing I have learned over all these years on the web is that no matter how much hype the new kids on the block can create, in the end, the rules of business remain the same… ethics remain the same… morals remain the same. These things are not a fad.
And when the major outlets get their legal act together, this will all be codified, by the law, and not by the thieves want to keep on thieving.
Last Word: THIS is the mother of all over-the-top cease and desist letters… so much so that lawyers sent me requests for copies of it for a couple years after it was sent.
“THIS is the mother of all over-the-top cease and desist letters”
I’m sorry, in terms of pure awesome that letter has been pwned by Activision vs. West and Zampella last week, which (among other things) asserts:
(West and Zampella) “…morphed from valued, responsible executives into insubordinate and self-serving schemers who attempted to hijack Activision’s assets for their own personal gain.”
Seriously, those lawyers are full of win.
A lawyer actually spent his ink on that shit? Wow.
“One idiot used to accuse me of thinking we owned the news we found. i don’t and I never did. But if you are giving credit to everyone but us, you are doing us an unkindness… and taking unfair advantage of the work that my staff works hard to do each day.”
I’m a little confused by your argument. You want credit, for searching around and posting articles by other news organizations, but as long as you don’t try and re-write them, you’re a legitimate news outlet? Can you explain in more succinct terms how you think you’re that much different than everyone else? Granted, you have columnists, but they’re pretty much all writing movie reviews, which are obviously subjective.
It’s ok to just make a ‘headline joke’ on your main page, and consider it new material (while still making you money because of the page view)?
Who cares if you link to the main source? You’re still making money off of other peoples material in the same way that they are! Are you kidding? Couldn’t you argue that all the networks basically steal from each other?
What is the philosophical difference, between an ABC reporter taking the information they learn from an NBC reporter (on TV), and using it to advance the story, versus Finke doing the same thing if she learns something from Waxman/Wolff/whoever. There is no money in journalism anymore, because everyone steals from everybody. Welcome to the 21st century Dave.
Harlan Ellison was right.
Legal classes? What ever came of that?
Jack: I thought you left. See, and I was feeling bad for my joke about how people like you are always threatening to leave but never actually leave, because I thought you were being sincere. Silly me.
“Who cares if you link to the main source? You’re still making money off of other peoples material…”
Now you’re trying to say that David is unethical because he LINKS TO OTHER PAGES ON THE INTERNET? Seriously? Are you mental?
MCN gets page views from me regularly from their aggregation service. This is only making money off other people’s work in the sense that movie theaters make money screening movies other people made. Or the post office making money off other people’s mail-order sales. Or cable companies making money off streaming other people’s channels to your television set. They all deliver a service to an end-user without depriving the supplier of profit.
MCN gets one page view from me when I visit the list of headlines on the main page. If I read any of those articles, the sites hosting those articles get paid, too. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT?
The difference with other aggregators that steal content whole is that you can consume the content without ever visiting the originating site. Thus, that aggregator got the page view INSTEAD of the originating site.
MCN doesn’t earn money that way. It earns money by providing me with a collection of articles I would never have found individually on my own, and it provides a way for me to get them. It’s like a catalogue. But to you, apparently catalogues are unethical and evil, too.
I wish you’d just man up and confess that you have some sort of bizarro personal problem with David instead of trying to pretend it’s about the issues. Because you’re not fooling anybody. You don’t give a crap about the issues. You just don’t like the guy.
^^ That sounds about right!
Sam (and Ray),
You want to get into it with me again, let’s go. I don’t know why you have such a big problem with me, but you’re always the first to attack out of all the commenters.
“Try to find the original reporting, if it is a reported story.”
What MCN does on their front page is ‘try to find the original reporting’????? Unless it’s an obit, I haven’t seen it.
What is the difference between what Waxman/Woolf do, and what Dave does? They’re all taking other peoples’ work, and linking to it!
“This is only making money off other people’s work in the sense that movie theaters make money screening movies other people made.”
This is the worst argument you make. Those people make money based on other people seeing “Their” work. So basically, aggregation is equal to movie piracy. Newspapers don’t hire people so that they can write articles, and than other “outlets” (i.e. MCN) can make money from it. That’s partially why the newspaper industry is going under. They thought that going to the internet was the hip thing to do, and then realized way too late that everybody was stealing their content.
“MCN gets one page view from me when I visit the list of headlines on the main page. If I read any of those articles, the sites hosting those articles get paid, too. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT?”
The whole point is the “IF”. You might not read the stuff that they’re linking to (and lots of other people as well), but they’re getting the page view based on the work of somebody else. If you’re a paper, it’s nice to get linked to if that is going to help your bottom line, but if 10,000 people start linking to you so they can get paid, and they’re not really helping you, you’re screwed.
“MCN doesn’t earn money that way. It earns money by providing me with a collection of articles I would never have found individually on my own, and it provides a way for me to get them. It’s like a catalogue. But to you, apparently catalogues are unethical and evil, too.”
How do you know how MCN earns money? Do you work there? Are you from Europe by the way? Because here, it’s ‘catalog’!
To Dave-I don’t have a problem with aggregation, but I don’t see it being ethical for a person who is doing that as their job, and criticizing other people for doing pretty much the same thing.
So tomorrow, I’m gonna wake up, find the first NYTimes story that I see, and ‘aggregate’. I’ll add 2-3 sentences, depending on how I feel, and we’ll see if you call that news, or something worthy of your attention.
“I don’t see it being ethical for a person who is doing that as their job, and criticizing other people for doing pretty much the same thing.”
Jack… you are either into baiting people or you are just ignorant about how not alike what MCN does and these others do. I will – though I am probably a fool for wasting my time doing so – try to help you understand.
What The Wrap, Newser, HuffPo, and too many other do is to take a couple of paragraphs from a story someone else wrote, put them on their proprietary pages (with ads, if they have them) and at the end of the excerpt, offer a link.
What MCN is does is to write a headline suggesting content and tone and then link to the source. Period.
If you can’t understand the difference, you are a bit of a moron, really.
There are certainly people who just look over a lot of headlines on the MCN front page and rarely click through. But when they click through, they get to the outlet that ran the story.
And whether you get it or not, we do our best to get to the originator… so if it’s Site A talking about a story that came from Site B, we try to get a link to Site B. And if Site A offers commentary that we think might be of value to the readers, we link to them too… with the originator linked first.
Many sites, including The Wrap, ask for us to link to them every day. We drive traffic. And we don’t steal.
And for the record, we even set the links to open new windows, so we aren’t accumulating more page views each time someone pushes the “back” button on their browser.
On our original content, we don’t put 300 words a page up to bring our page view count up either.
And we don’t do pages and pages of daily news gathering laid out as original content when all it really represents is repurposing the work of others. If we think it is valuable, we link to it. If I – or any of the MCN writers – think it needs to be commented on or analyzed, we write about it… with an early, clear link to the original material.
Finally, to answer your “Newspapers don’t hire people so that they can write articles, and than other “outlets” (i.e. MCN) can make money from it.”
Of course they don’t. They publish so they can make money from it. They seek readers in a very crowded internet space and MCN, as many others do fairly, highlights the work they are doing and creates the opportunity, via links, for people to read the original work on the original site.
What they don’t want or get from MCN is us reading what they published and either taking the information outright and pretending our “staff” reported it OR taking the core information that 90% of readers (or more) would be satisfied with as all the info they needed on that story, sell and ad for that on our site, and then, honor the originator with a link… which we know full well, by design, only a tiny percentage of readers will ever click thru.
To wit, MCN gets ONE page view each time someone comes to our front page to look at the aggregated headlines. We may generate anywhere from 0 to maybe 6 click-thrus for other outlets – sometimes our own internal pages with original content – every time the average person visits.
The same person who clicks on 6 stories from other outlets at The Wrap will reach 6 more Wrap pages… and if they don’t right-click a new tab or page, at least 5 trips back to the front page. That’s a dozen pageviews for The Wrap before a single click-thru to the originating source. And given a couple graphs from that originating source on the Wrap page, will they ever click-thru to that originating source? Sometimes yes… absolutely. Though I have to say, in a year of reading The Wrap, I have become less likely to click through because they steal all the meat.
Get it now?
“There is no money in journalism anymore, because everyone steals from everybody. Welcome to the 21st century Dave.”
Are you celebrating this, “Jack?”
There is no money in Bernie Madoff’s bank account anymore, because everyone steals from everybody. Welcome to the 21st century, Jack.
Are you really this utterly lacking in morality?
There’s a (non-movie) trade site that works that way: Rewrite stuff from national media, add snarky remarks, flavor with handouts, don’t credit local media if they report a story. I stopped reading that site because of its douche-like attitude.
“You might not read the stuff that they’re linking to (and lots of other people as well), but they’re getting the page view based on the work of somebody else.”
They’re getting the page view, because of the interesting point of view that filters the news for me so I don’t have to sift through it myself. I might not click on it, but then again, without the aggregator to sift through it, I wouldn’t even know that that article existed.
Jack, what body of knowledge or experience are you offering in your incessant critiques? Or to poorly paraphrase Don Murphy, whereof do you speak?
First of all-don’t call me a moron. Why does this conversation always get so personal? Yeah, I have problems with what you do, but I’m sure that you could say the same about what I do if you had an opportunity to critique it everyday. Can we get past that?
Anyways,here is my example of what you do with aggregation:
“Hiding the booze, Asian style….”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/world/asia/13bootleg.html?hp
Does that sum it up, and if so, should you be making money from that? If any of the other outlets that you critique wrote lead-in paragraphs, and you wrote that, would you be ‘ethical’ in your mind, with that headline, while they are not? I don’t get the difference. You’re making money, and stealing content, either way.
You keep talking about page-views, as if that is the issue I’m concerned about. I could care less if you get fewer page views than other sites because of the way that you do business. But don’t act like the better person because you have a moral standard of linking to ‘other peoples work’, and you believe they don’t. At the end of the day, you’re all stealing. The NYTimes might make money from the link if you posted it, but you’re also taking part of their money by doing what you’re doing. If you didn’t exist, the people who really wanted to read that article would be going to the direct source. And the Times wouldn’t have to think “We’re gonna fire this person, because nobody is reading their work in print”. The internet is obviously a game-changer for media, but don’t bemoan the downfall of print media when you’re screwing them over at the same time with your website.
“What The Wrap, Newser, HuffPo, and too many other do is to take a couple of paragraphs from a story someone else wrote, put them on their proprietary pages (with ads, if they have them) and at the end of the excerpt, offer a link.”
And you offer a snarky headline, and then link to the story, while making money by doing it? Ethical difference?
“What MCN is does is to write a headline suggesting content and tone and then link to the source. Period.”
So copying paragraphs from a story, that might lead the reader to actually read the entire piece, is better than making a joke about the content of the piece, and linking to it?
Seriously-I can’t get a fair argument around here. Maybe you’re right, and I am a moron. But it’s hard to be the only person challenging you, when you have a chorus of backers who pounce on me at will.
Jack, I have read and re-read you comments here, and I honestly don’t get your point. That is, unless you’re one of those people who just wander the earth, forever looking for reasons to be outraged. I go to an aggregation site such as this (or, back David Hudson was handling it, Green Cine) to get tips regarding potentially interesting articles scattered throughout the Internet. For the same reason, I have set a My Google News page that searches the web for stories that might interest me. How is this in any way, shape or form unethical? Because, look, I don’t have the time or the inclination to randomly surf the web for hours on end, looking for articles. MCN and other sites save me time and, better still, direct me to articles I might not otherwise know about. But wait, there’s more: The people who write those articles, and the sites that publish them, get exposure they might not otherwise get. If you want to argue that Movie City News is a bit too snarky when writing headlines for links, well, I’d likely agree with you in many cases. But, again, I think of an aggregation site pretty much the same way I think of a friend who occasionally e-mails me links to articles that might interest me. Again: I have honestly tried, but I don’t understand what you’re upset about.
Jack’s point is quite obvious and pretending otherwise is obfuscating. Now what it all means in degrees is debatable.
OK, Christian, what do you mean? I’m serious: What is the issue here? Are you and Jack against aggregation per se, or what?
I’m not taking sides my friend. But his point if I’m understanding it is that when David j’accuses others of unfair aggregation (I hate that word) then we get to what is “fair” – and that’s only based on David’s definition – then it gets sticky. If you’re linking to stories, you’re linking to stories. The HuffPo tries to fob them off as theirs, it’s true, but….what was the question?
“Are you celebrating this, “Jack?”
There is no money in Bernie Madoff’s bank account anymore, because everyone steals from everybody. Welcome to the 21st century, Jack.”
I’m not celebrating it at all. I’m trying to point out to you that you shouldn’t be hypocritical by judging other people for doing something that you you do yourself. And are you comparing yourself to Bernie Madoff with that comment? Because I’m a moron, I obviously don’t get the metaphor.
I’m not against aggregation, but I’m against people on the web bemoaning the downfall of print journalism jobs, when aggregation caused it. How many times do I have to read on this blog that so and so got laid off (and Dave is so somber about it), when the internet and the people that complain about it caused it. Get my point now Joe?
Jack: Aggregation has little or nothing to do with the downfall of print journalism. If you’re looking for a culprit, you’d do better to blame Craigslist. Seriously: Unless you’ve ever worked in newspapers, you have no idea how much papers rely — well, used to rely — on classified ads to survive. Also, take a look at the documentary Stop the Presses: The American Newspaper in Peril: Short-sighted corporate greedheads have more blood on their hands than aggregators have or ever will have. Trust me on this: There were no aggregators around 15 years ago this month when my paper, The Houston Post, went under.
Joe-
I have worked in the newspaper industry, and I thought this comment from you was telling:
“Because, look, I don’t have the time or the inclination to randomly surf the web for hours on end, looking for articles.”
When you worked for The Houston Post, did you think this way? Did you look at other newspapers for potential story ideas, and if so, how would that be different from aggregation? If you took the idea for a story based on another article, would that be stealing?
I know about the economics of Craiglist, and I know that it took millions away from newspapers. But if you really think aggregation had nothing to do with the downfall of newspapers, we don’t really have anything else to talk about.
What did you do? Sell papers on street corners? Drive delivery trucks? Ride around on your bike and toss papers onto people’s lawns? I’m sorry, Jack, but your postings read like ill-informed screeds. You’re right, we don’t have anything to talk about.
Oh my gosh-I didn’t get the memo that “Selling papers on corners””,”Driving Delivery Trucks”, and “Tossing Papers” was beneath you Joe. I should probably go back to my bicycle and ride away crying. Can we quit the baby talk on this blog for once?
Do you have a real response. I’m all ears.
Jack, I’m not quite sure what you want me to respond to. I think your entire premise is faulty. I think your logic is specious. If you’re asking me if I’ve ever read a feature story that inspired me to write something on the same topic, well, yes. Of course. Did I plagiarize? No. Do I see this as the same as aggregation? No. Again: It’s questions like this that make me doubt your newspaper experience involved anything more meaningful than working as a paperboy during your youth. To put it bluntly: I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.
Jack: You keep coming back to how MCN makes money off other people’s content. How? MCN doesn’t *steal* content. You don’t see content reprinted on MCN. You see links to the source. Because of MCN’s aggregation, the content providers are making money.
The difference between that and the sites David is complaining about here is that these other sites reprint the content, thus making it unnecessary for the reader to visit the source site to consume the content. THAT is stealing. Because the aggregator has taken possession of the content and supplies it to the reader INSTEAD of directing the user to the source.
All MCN aggregation does is direct people to where they can find original content. Yes, they do make a little money off doing that, but THEY SHOULD, because they are (1) generating revenue for the content creators, and (2) offering a service to readers, namely, enabling them to find content faster, and which they likely would not otherwise find.
I don’t know how to put it any simpler, dude.
Maybe think of it like a travel agent. A travel agent directs people to hotels and airlines. The agent doesn’t STEAL from the hotels or airlines. The people are STILL GOING to the hotels and airlines, who are providing the service the customers ultimately want. But they make the process of finding rooms and flights easier, and for that the agents rightfully earn some money for themselves.
Why is this so hard to understand?
To address one specific argument of yours:
>> “MCN gets one page view from me when I visit the list of headlines on the main page. If I read any of those articles, the sites hosting those articles get paid, too.
>
> The whole point is the “IF”. You might not read the stuff that they’re linking to . . . but they’re getting the page view based on the work of somebody else.
With MCN, if I *don’t* click on something that MCN links to, I DID NOT RECEIVE THE CONTENT. The content provider SHOULDN’T HAVE TO GET PAID because they published something I DIDN’T READ.
MCN, on the other hand, got the page view from me not because I didn’t click on one particular link, but because I’m interested in skimming through the headlines they found for stuff I *am* interested in. They’re not making money off other people’s work: they’re making money because MCN ITSELF did the work of finding the news stories I *might* be interested in and directing me to where I can read them.
You complain about not getting a fair debate here, but seriously, this is so far beyond a debatable issue that it boggles my mind.
If my father-in-law is correct, print media is dying because liberal bias has infected it at every level. I remember a grad school class I had about two years ago: Old Media, New Media. There were about 25 students in the class with an age range of 25-40. The professor asked how many of us still read a newspaper the old-fashioned way. Three of us (myself included) raised our hands.
Without getting into the pissing contest, I think what JW is referring to is the “Pile of Beans” problem.
Paraphrased (badly), it runs that Plato or Aristotle… or one of that crowd… showed one of his students a single bean next to a large quantity of beans.
“What’s this?” the teacher asked, pointing to the single bean. “A bean” said the student.
“What’s this?” asked the teacher, pointing to the large quantity of beans this time. “A pile of beans” replied the student, somewhat confused.
The teacher took a bean from the larger pile and placed it next to the single bean. “Is this a pile of beans?” he asked. “No” replied the student.
The teacher took another bean from the larger pile and added it to the smaller group. “How about now – is this a pile of beans?” the teacher asked. “No…” the student repeated, slightly less sure of themself.
The process repeated – the teacher taking a single bean at a time, adding it to the smaller group, and asking the same question. At last, the baffled student replied “Yes”.
“Aha!” exclaimed the teacher. “So a pile of beans is exactly 27 beans!”
Seen at the extremities – a single summary sentence with a link, compared with the entire reproduced article – the difference is obvious. But what if you wanted to add a second sentence, you know, to give readers a bit more understanding of the article that they might want to read. Is that okay? How about three sentences? How about a paragraph? Two paragraphs? At what point does it cross the line from “some beans” (okay) to “a pile of beans” (not okay?).
To complicate matters how can there be any form of objective standard without a common consensus?, Just as one person can look at 10 beans and call it “some beans” while a different person calls it “a pile of beans”, so too can different providers differ in what is acceptable and what is not.
I love when Jack decides it’s getting personal… because his attacks on me aren’t. Hee hee.
Yes, Jack, your inability to grasp this concept is a show of inconceivable stupidity – you obviously don’t have a 2-digit IQ – a basic inability to to understand how the web is monetized or, again, an unquenchable urge to attack me and defend others against my moral outrage.
Could be all three or any combination.
The coin of the internet world is page views. There are a variety of ways of getting them. The assumptions about who wants to read what and how they get to it are, simply, without merit of any kind.
The idea that linking to the NYT website with a five word headline is somehow MCN taking money out of the NYT’s pocket is just bizarre, actually arguing AGAINST what you claim to believe. Indeed, if someone wants to read the NYT, the paper is completely available on the web for your enjoyment, including that story. How does that headline interfere with that relationship?
In fact, you picked about as bad an example of a headline as you could. It is an odd story and a headline that could not possibly sate the reader. If you want to know what that headline means, you must click through to the NYT website. At that point, MCN has given a page view to the NYT, which they can monetize as they like, obviously.
On the other hand, the practice that you seem to think is exactly the same, would be to take the first two paragraphs of the story, put them on an MCN page that we could sell ads on and over which the NYT has no control – we could sell porn next to their content in that situation if we chose to – and then, if the MCN reader felt a need to know even more, they would have the chance to click thru, at which point NYT gets their page views and the ad sale to go with it.
Let me put this in terms that you might get. You go to Baskin Robbins. You can ask for tastes of different flavors. They give you a small bite on a branded spoon. Maybe you have no intention of buying the ice cream you are tasting, but this is part of how they do their ice cream business, encouraging new flavors and servicing the customer.
Now… say I open a business by the backdoor of your B-R and I tell you that I am going to hire a team to give away tastes of your ice cream flavors, so your busy staff doesn’t have to spend time on people tasting on a hot summer afternoon and can just sell 3 scoop sundaes. How can I afford to be in business? Well, you are going to supply the ice cream and my “taste stand” will have some ads on my cart. My team won’t be very well paid and I am not paying rent.
Okay… seems reasonable enough… it works to my benefit, but it may well allow your B-R to sell more ice cream more efficiently.
But what I do with your ice cream, instead of offering just enough of a taste to help a customer decide what they want, is to give everyone who asks for a taste a full scoop.
Now, some people are going to love the scoop and will go in right away and buy a sundae. But some people are going to find one scoop to be quite enough ice cream for the moment, thanks.
That is the difference between a headline and the republication of two paragraphs (or more) of a story… or a rewrite of the story, which would be like taking someone’s ice cream order, being told they want a cone, giving it too them in a cup, but then telling them they can have the ice cream in a cup for free and the cone is gonna cost them.
Okay… I am now talking to you like a child. Not good. But you are so lost.
“Aggregation” is the enemy like “the internet” is the enemy like “blogger” is what every person who publishes on the web is, like “Muslims” are the enemy and “health care reform” is Socialist.
If you can’t comprehend anything more subtle than these big, dumb labels, then you are lost. If you can’t understand how an idea – like aggregation – can go from being helpful – as links are – to being damaging – as content repurposing is, you are beyond any effort to explain.
Yeah… no web… no links… not change to print. But I don’t live as a Luddite. I seek the best possible answers to what is, not to what once was.
What is your goal, other than to muddy the water and to keep telling me that my hands are dirty just like everyone else’s, regardless of how our behaviors differ.
Holy mixed tenses batman. That’s what I get for not having enough sleep…
Jack’s criticisms don’t amount to a pile of beans.
Foamy: I appreciate that there’s a blurry line somewhere, but that doesn’t mean it’s *always* hard to tell when it’s crossed or not crossed. To my recollection, MCN’s headlines have never supplied enough information about a news story as to serve as a replacement for the story itself. Thus, it’s nowhere near that gray area. Some sites are within that gray area, and others are unambiguously on the other side of it.
But I see your point. If Jack’s problem was that he thinks MCN’s headlines serve as a substitute for the full story, that would at least have been an argument worth having.
“What is your goal, other than to muddy the water and to keep telling me that my hands are dirty just like everyone else’s, regardless of how our behaviors differ.”
I think my goal is to try to get you to think about the muddy waters, and not be the person to cast the first stone all the time.
And if you think I’m confusing, you need to go back to your Baskin Robbins metaphor-where did that come from?
“Okay… seems reasonable enough… it works to my benefit, but it may well allow your B-R to sell more ice cream more efficiently.”
Yeah, this metaphor and its lesson seems to be working out really well for the newspaper industry at the moment.
“To complicate matters how can there be any form of objective standard without a common consensus?, Just as one person can look at 10 beans and call it “some beans” while a different person calls it “a pile of beans”, so too can different providers differ in what is acceptable and what is not.”
Thank you FS-this is EXACTLY what I’m getting at. Why is it ok Dave, for you to take any piece of journalism that you please, link to it, make money off of it, and then accuse anyone else who goes a tad farther in that direction, of being unethical?
“Aggregation” is the enemy like “the internet” is the enemy like “blogger” is what every person who publishes on the web is, like “Muslims” are the enemy and “health care reform” is Socialist.”
And I’m the one being childish here? If you want to call me names and arrest me, go for it.
Sam-“Thus, it’s nowhere near that gray area. Some sites are within that gray area, and others are unambiguously on the other side of it.”
Who draws that line? If there was an actual standard here, I wouldn’t have a problem. But you can’t just pick and choose your lines-you’re either defining a line, and not crossing it, or you’re not.
I’m not a Luddite, but it pisses me off when people pick their line as technology progresses, and then decide to prosecute everyone else for crossing it. If Waxman and Woolf can make money off what they are doing, how is Dave not the Luddite for trying to stop them?
More like the “I know obscenity when I see it” argument, Foamy.
Those aggregators who make a practice of quoting graphs of the original content on their own pages before offering a link know exactly what they are doing. Wolff, though I am not a fan of how his site works, is at least honest about it. He is servicing his readers… creating a convenience… and he doesn’t seem to give a shit about the content creators.
You know, I have to live with people writing about what I write. It’s not always fun, but it seems like fair game. And when I am quoted in that context, I kinda asked for it.
But in a media form in which a large percentage of people consume in small spurts, a couple of graphs on a story, especially when it is not being used as the basis for analysis but is just being reprinted, I consider it an unquestionable infringement.
If you are counting 22 oranges or 27 oranges, you are right… it’s a judgment call at that point. But the issue is when you take one orange at a time off the pile, it doesn’t seem to matter much.
But as you take, one meaningless orange at a time, 20 of the 27 oranges to sell at your fruit stand… and you still take the other seven, but they create a taste for oranges that you can no longer satisfy, so they go back to the stand you stole the oranges from and buy more, do you really get to pat yourself on the back for sending them some orange buyers?
Bottom line is that any content creator knows where their line is… and if you create the content, you should have the right to make that call for your content.
The reason that Google’s aggregation is seen as dangerous, besides some of the story quoting they do, is that they facilitate access to content from sources other than the originating source… even when the originator has a pay wall up. Should a news outlet have to enforce copyright against every outlet that is aggregated on Google?
“But in a media form in which a large percentage of people consume in small spurts, a couple of graphs on a story, especially when it is not being used as the basis for analysis but is just being reprinted, I consider it an unquestionable infringement.”
So YouTube, in your mind, is terrible? I’m not getting personal-just trying to understand your mindset.
Actually I was thinking more of Blackadder at the time…
The “obscenity” argument is close-ish, but I find the “pile o’ beans” is more apt since aggregation deals with quantitative issues (how much is reproduced) in addition to qualitative issues (the manner in which it is reproduced). Your mileage may vary, of course.
Never heard the beans version before. Usually it’s a heap of sand, or maybe grain. Hence the name “sorites paradox.”
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/
Jack, you seem to have a boner for fucking with Poland…I can get down with that, we all have people we like to fuck with. But in this fight, you’re being a dumbass and you probably know it.
Go to Movie City News…you see those links, they are just a one-line description to the gist of the story, which you have to click to read the story. No commentary like most other sites would add, no nothing. To get the content, you have to click that fucker of a link and read the article. Therefore, revenue to the originating site, straight up.
I don’t go looking at fifty different website for news. So any link I click on from MCN is absolutely a page I would have never read otherwise. MCN steers readers to websites. How can you argue otherwise except for you stroking your boner right now?
“Who draws that line? If there was an actual standard here, I wouldn’t have a problem. But you can’t just pick and choose your lines-you’re either defining a line, and not crossing it, or you’re not.”
I think the line is attribution. It’s a widely drawn line at newspapers, where Jack claims to have experience. Heard of it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_%28copyright
Whoops…bad link above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_%28copyright%29
“Those aggregators who make a practice of quoting graphs of the original content on their own pages before offering a link know exactly what they are doing. Wolff, though I am not a fan of how his site works, is at least honest about it. He is servicing his readers… creating a convenience… and he doesn’t seem to give a shit about the content creators.”
Do you have any direct knowledge of how Woolf finds his sources? You don’t seem to be too happy with him, but you’re happy smearing his name all over your website (which you make money off of by telling your readers not to go there. !!!!)
Here is a gem for you:
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/classic/features/to-catch-a-legend-200406
I’m sure that JW and GC are sitting around thinking “Thank god that David Poland and MNC are going to link to us”.
“Wolff, though I am not a fan of how his site works, is at least honest about it. He is servicing his readers… creating a convenience… and he doesn’t seem to give a shit about the content creators.”
How are you honest about your own site? Can I see a stock prospectus, because maybe I would invest my companies money into your lost cause (even though I know that it’s private, and that’s why you get away with it). If you’re thinking long term with this site, what is it?
Would you be pleased if I had a blog that criticized your journalism techniques, with zero proof?
James Wolcott is a HUGE LexG fan.
He’s featured yours truly three times.
BOOYAH!
JW… Ryan… whatever your real name is… you seem to be lost in a fog of your own obsession now. You’re not even making sense.
I think we’re done now. I generally bend over backwards to take everyone who takes the time to participate on the blog or to e-mail me privately seriously, but beyond your anger at me, you’ve become like a debater who really wants to fight, but can’t construct or respond to simple ideas… like Michael Wolff’s aggregation rules, as shown on his site in 100s of examples you can see anytime yo go there.
My journalism techniques, as represented by what I print, are and have always been fair game. You are what you publish… for better or for worse. The “proof” is the work.
So either you haven’t bothered to look at Newser before screaming about how morally corrupt I am in questioning their methods OR you are just trolling OR you are simply mentally unable to comprehend what you see on the web.
How about this as a standard measure: If an aggregation site gives you just enough info about a story to make you read the actual story, that’s OK. But if it gives you so much info that you don’t need to read the actual story, that’s not OK.
That’s a good measure, Joe.
Great. OK, now I’m taking off for the Middle East, to see what I can do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Joe’s measure is a gold standard.
And do something about Iraq and Afghanistan on your way back. And pick me up a Sonic burger.
Five Guys FTW!
Why Sonic and Five Guys? Who are you to say those are the best burgers? Have you been to EVERY burger joint in America? Unless you’ve been to EVERY burger joint in America and have personally tasted every burger ever made, I don’t see how you can be qualified to make such an assertion. And even if you HAVE been to every burger joint and have come to that conclusion, how do you know that the burger you had and liked was 100% representative of the quality of the burgers they make all the time. Maybe you got lucky and the burger you ate was an anamoly. How do you know the guy behind you in line had the same quality burger that you received? You don’t. And yet here you go making definitive statements without knowing all the burger facts. And what of the places you dismissed in settling on your “favorite” burger? Maybe they were just having an off day when you visited and could very well be making BETTER burgers than Sonics or Five Guys. My point is you don’t know, so why make the claim? Are you friends with the people who run Sonics and Five Guys? Is that why you’re shilling for them here? And who made you the burger authority, anyway? You can’t just arbitrarily draw a line and say “this burger is ok” and “that burger isn’t.” You have to deal with cold hard empirical facts. Especially on a blog. To do otherwise smacks of self-interest and hypocrisy.
sincerely,
Jack Walsh
Gee, I just wanted a Sonic.
In & Out is the best as we all know.
I can’t remember what Sonic tastes like. I tell you what, I’m happy Big Bufords from Rally’s, (which I believe is Checkers in other parts of the country).
I don’t know if I got all the burger beans who tipped over the horse before the apple cart references or they might’ve been going in a different direction than what I was initially thinking but I thought I could see what Jack was getting at earlier. More of a bottomline issue. I don’t know if this is what he was getting at but MCN offers sort of a one-stop-shop for ent news & discussion. When I log onto the site, I, the consumer, know or expect to find all of the relevant news of the day. A certain percentage of the news comes via links to other people
Cassell’s is the best.
OK, I’m back. Who ordered the double cheeseburger with bacon?
One at a time? That’s going to take FOREVER.
Mine was a double cheeseburger, no cheese, no sauce, no meat, no bread.
Oh, and no salad either.
OK, stick out your hand and I’ll give you the sesame seeds that were on the bun.
Mmmmm… sesame…
I said MUSTARD ONLY. You’ll have to go back.
At the risk of stirring up the hornet’s nest again: I can just imagine JW watching the 11 pm news tonight and screaming at his TV: “Don’t you know that one of your rival stations ALSO ran stories last year about people mailing their IRS returns at the last minute? Did you watch those stories AND STEAL THE IDEA FROM THEM??!!! WHERE IS THE MORALITY?!?!?!?”
Except even worse, what JW was arguing against is essentially if NBC was saying “hey, CBS has a great interesting news story on right now…go watch them them instead of us! Oh yeah, and then you should watch The Simpsons on FOX!”
“My journalism techniques, as represented by what I print, are and have always been fair game. You are what you publish… for better or for worse. The “proof” is the work.”
Good to know that challenging those standards, gets you called a moron, incompetent, a troll and insulted by everyone on the blog you write for as your job. Thanks for upholding the morals of Journalism Dave. I’ll keep that in mind the next time I have a thought. We are done.
Jack Douche.
“We are done.”
Until when? Tomorrow? Jack, promises were made.
Play the victim, Jack Walsh. You have earned the contempt.
I have tried to engage you. But you offer no suggestion that engagement is what you want. So be it.