I just popped open Google reader and saw a post on StevePavlina.com about a fellow named David Schirmer. Now, the name sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite place it, until I saw these videos:
All I can say is wow.
The sad thing is there are people like that all over the place, and to be honest I think the % of people doing unethical things like that is actually increasing, especially on the Internet.
I’m in a bit of shock right now.
I found out someone stole an article I wrote (the one on registering domains which I recently wrote). I did a whois and found out a law office is the registered owner of the domain. Normally I’d file a DMCA and that’d be that, but this time something else obviously needs to be done.
Here’s a question for all of you, do you think I should report the lawyer who owns the law office to the state bar? As far as I can tell they run similar spammy sites, and they even have the nerve to steal my bandwidth.
Uhg.
What is your definition of a splog? For a site to be considered a splog does it have to steal entire articles, or just bits and pieces of them? These are all important questions when deciding whether or not to file a DMCA notice.
I think pretty much everyone (except sploggers, of course) will agree that blogs that are nothing but stolen articles are splogs. After all they go onto your site, steal your work, post it on a page with bunches of ads, and enjoy the rewards. Most likely they don’t even do any of the work either, since there are numerous RSS to Blog tools that sploggers use to automate the entire process.
Now those are the easy splogs to spot, but what about blogs that are nothing but quoted articles? Generally speaking they are breaking no laws, and there is a much less chance of them causing any damage. Their keyword to content ratio is so out of whack that I would be shocked if the Google Bot didn’t pick up on it.
With that said, are they really splogs?
I think one could argue that yes, they are. They don’t do any work, they still get free money, and they add little value to the Internet. But now things get complicated - think about Digg.com
Most posts on Digg use quotes from the article, and Digg gets advertising revenue. The Digg crew doesn’t manually go through and submit all of those things, it all happens “automatically”. So, couldn’t you argue that Digg is actually a splog?
But if you say Digg is a splog, wouldn’t that also mean Reddit and the other social networks are also splogs? What exactly is the difference between them and the real threats?
I think the difference is in what they offer to the Internet. Sploggers want to get as rich as possible with as little work as possible, thus their sites are often lame and provide worthless content to the Internet. Social media sites want to provide an actual service.
In the past few days I’ve seen about 10 stories like this that claim Google “owns” your content submitted to docs and spreadsheets. Too bad those stories are misleading and are only telling half of the story.
Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services. Google reserves the right to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any service offered by Google. Google furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion.
For starters, Sentence #1 clearly states Google does not own your content.
The second sentence (By submitting, posting or displaying…) says that if you make the content publicly available this clause applies, but it doesn’t apply to private data.
And the sentences that most people quote in those stories (in the middle of that paragraph) only say Google can use the content for promotion (well duh, they want to show off what their services can do), and it says they can syndicate your content (use it on one of the many Google blogs to show off their service, for example).
And one last thing, that only affect content that you post through a Google service (in this case docs and spreadsheet). Content held elsewhere is still yours (a point that doesn’t seem to be getting through!)
So let’s recap, Google doesn’t own your content nor do they claim to in any way, shape, or form, Google can modify your content or whatever only for promotion purposes, and that the content affected by that paragraph has to be submitted through a Google app (in this case docs and spreadsheet). And, this clause only applies to publicly available content, not private stuff.
Evil? No. Business people? Yes.
There’s been a lot of chat about AT&T’s recent legal threat against the company that is trying to sell iPhone unlocking software. There is a flaw in the DMCA laws, and that flaw could be the reason AT&T wins.
A while back the Register of Copyrights said unlocking your cell phone was legal: “Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.”
Here’s the catch, key in on the words “with the sole purpose of…”.
By that definition circumventing for financial gain (like selling unlocking software) is illegal. Yes it is wacky, but that’s how bad the copyright laws are these days.
To make it weirder if they said “for the purpose of” then it could possibly be legal.
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