On Sat, 2009-07-04 at 17:23 +0100, Matt Wardman wrote: > >I can't see any technical reason [other than software defaults] that > authors/publishers can't just publish their own full feed. Hence I'd > argue that the full-feed tool would be more or less redundant in an > opt-in model. [Making a pretty PDF, however, is quite clever.] > > I think that simply underlines the point that it is not a technical, > but a moral and ethical, question.
I think that's right. IMO, the pertinent question isn't whether it's *legal*, it's whether it's *polite*. Also, there's a world of difference between doing that for private use and offering it as a service. I've scraped sites to make full-fat RSS before, but I've kept it to myself. I only use it to read stuff I would otherwise have had to read in a browser. It's just format shifting, really. The difficulty comes when you build that, offer it as a service, and all sorts of people start using it to aggregate content, build spam blogs, and whatever else they feel like doing. At that point you've really usurped the owner's prerogative. I would say, though, that all of that should be set aside if it's something of sufficient cultural or societal worth that the owner's rights are trumped: TheyWorkForYou springs to mind. Harry > > >I'm not sure where I'd want to draw the line on the question of what > processing of websites is acceptable; I would tend to argue that most > forms of processing for personal use are okay unless explicitly > forbidden; but where third parties are involved, they should be much > more cautious; I would agree that broadersheet/fivefilters ought to > ensure they have a licence to redistribute their content. > > I appreciate the point - it's an interesting debate. > > The BBC particularly quite rightly get shirty if you start building a > commercial service from their content, but are unofficially quite > relaxed. > > There's also a big issue around building a service which facilitates > scraping and splogging. There's enough trouble our there without sharp > developers giving potential auto-scrape-toolkits to every idiot who > wants one. > > The figures are that we have lost perhaps 700-1000 journalists from > Regional Papers recently due to loss of revenue. I think the "full > feed PDF paper" type service is better placed as a value added service > for content providers, or a licensed use of content by third parties. > The Northern Echo (not a small paper), for example, cut 15% last > autumn. It's quite important. Once the content creators have gone bust > there's nothing left to build full feeds from. > > >A question: would you object to my hypothetical butler cutting out > only the most interesting stories from the free paper, clipping them > together and handing them to me? > > No, but I don't think that is a good comparison. > > Although of course, if you're butler is a PR agency charging you for > the privilege he would need a cuttings licence from the Newspaper > Licensing Authority ! > > M. > > On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 4:53 PM, 'Dragon' Dave McKee > <[email protected]> wrote: > > There's a tool presented by a commenter that will take a > partial feed, > > scrape the content articles it refers to, and provide a full > feed. > > > > I'm surprised how strongly I feel about this: such services > must be > > opt-in for each author. > > > I can't see any technical reason [other than software > defaults] that > authors/publishers can't just publish their own full feed. > Hence I'd > argue that the full-feed tool would be more or less redundant > in an > opt-in model. [Making a pretty PDF, however, is quite clever.] > > I'm not sure where I'd want to draw the line on the question > of what > processing of websites is acceptable; I would tend to argue > that most > forms of processing for personal use are okay unless > explicitly > forbidden; but where third parties are involved, they should > be much > more cautious; I would agree that broadersheet/fivefilters > ought to > ensure they have a licence to redistribute their content. > > A question: would you object to my hypothetical butler cutting > out > only the most interesting stories from the free paper, > clipping them > together and handing them to me? > > Dave. > > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list [email protected] > Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: > > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public > > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list [email protected] > Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
