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Do Search Engines, Aggregators, Blogs and Web Sites Break Copyright Laws?  

:: Monday, January 17, 2005 ::

What consitutes "unauthorized commercial use of my feed"? This is what blog owner, Martin Schwimmer, owner of TradeMark Blog claims is being done by a news aggregator linking to his site. He's requested Bloglines to remove his feed. Shame. Since I use Bloglines, love it, and rely on it to help me keep track of what's happening on the sites I want to follow.

I don't remember seeing any ads on Bloglines, but if you check here, this is going to change.

Would I blame Bloglines for trying to support itself? No. They've been linking to my blog for free. I'm thankful for this.

Mr. Schwimmer is not thankful for his link. He sounds like he feels used. It's not like his site was added to Bloglines because he asked for it specifically. His site will appear there because his fans want to be notified whenever he makes a new post, and Bloglines offers them this opportunity.

He wants the link but he doesn't want anyone making money from it. He also didn't like how the link was displayed in Bloglines.

All kinds of hoopla resulted. Schwimmer elaborates and tries to clarify his position in Clarifying Some Points As To Why I Asked Bloglines To Remove My Feed

He raises some questions that force me to wonder if, since there are ads on this blog, he'll ask me to not link to his blog entry. Granted, I've not quoted from it.(Too leery.) I've only mentioned his name, and supplied a link to his blog, but this blog will be crawled and added to search engines. Anyone searching for "Martin Schwimmer" may find this blog entry, click to it, read this post and click on an ad.

Will I be sued for this?

Think I'm crazy to ask?

See Trouble Brewing over Search Engines, Aggregators and Copyrights, where you'll see what's become a wild debate on web owner rights.

This has me really concerned.

I don't deny anyone the right to defend what they feel is improper use of their content. But, this is the Internet. Unless we password protect everything we put on it, it's all fair game, despite our wishes to the contrary. We've all had, or known someone who has had their web site design and/or content ripped off. How many of you run over to Amazon to see how they're doing things, to get ideas or hell, just steal them outright? Or Ebay.

I know people say it's not all fair game. This is fantasy. I've seen my blog called many names - not the "Cre8pc Blog". I don't care. I'm grateful for the link. I'm happy I didn't have to pay someone to link to my blog. I'm happy we didn't draw up a contract and sign a terms and conditions agreement so I could get that link.

I've seen well known people called names, their companies trashed, their web sites defaced or cloned in a manner that causes them embarressment. I've watched people tormented by individuals who think it's okay to trash people online and destroy reputations. If you have an opinion, someone will disagree with you and many are cruel about it. That you have a web site and people don't like you means your work will be "reproduced" in a wild variety of ways and formats, by sites that are generating revenue simply because spreading rumors is what they do. Case in point: f***edcompany.com

When the Internet becomes filled with lawsuit-crazy web owners, you can bet website owners will stop linking, and stop providing free forums, free blogs, free news aggretators, free search engines, etc.

Is this what we want the Internet to become?

:: posted by Kim Krause Berg on 1/17/2005 01:03:15 PM

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