Comments on: Memo to World: Please Aggregate Technologizer

By: William Dodder

William Dodder — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:17:41 +0000

Connie Schultz of the Cleveland Plain Dealer is without a clue. If the content is so good then put up a pay wall. If it has value then your customers will pay for it. If not then you’ll be out of business in no time.

Oh.. and Connie. Online is breaking alot more news than your paper ever does.. I guess you’ll extend the same courtesy?

By: Jake

Jake — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:38:27 +0000

Interesting: when I read your update on Facebook, I assumed your concern was that you would be unable to aggregate, not that you would be unable to be aggregated.

I understand Schultz’s frustration, though. I write some news briefs for a technology site, and I get most of my leads by browsing other technology news sources and blogs. When I go to write my own, my first choice is to find the original press release or company statement that the source I read based their story on. My second choice is to use my source, and if I do, I always credit it and link to it. But I could certainly rewrite my source without attribution if I chose to, and I’m convinced a lot of places do just that. Oddly, both of the places Schultz mentions prominently feature the source with the item.

I like LEM’s approach there, but as far as I can see it just covers direct quotes. (And is it enforceable by any means than just asking?)

By: Dan Knight

Dan Knight — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:21:35 +0000

We discussed this at Low End Mac in April, and we recognize that “aggregators” do more good than harm. We created two guidelines for Fair Use of our published content:

1. The quoted material must include a link to the original article and include the name of its author. The article should be attributed to Low End Mac, LowEndMac.com, or lowendmac.com (not LowEndMac, LEM, Low-End Mac, or any other variant).

2. The quoted material may not comprise more than 50% or more than 300 words, whichever is less, of the original article.

I think this provides a good balance between the rights of others to quote from and respond to our material while at the same time protecting the site and our staff from outright plagiarism.

I’d love to see other sites develop and share their ideas as to what constitutes fair use.

Dan Knight, LowEndMac.com

By: DTNick

DTNick — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:27:27 +0000

Agreed; I don’t see how this idea will help out anybody. I used to be editor-in-chief for a small tech blog, and on our biggest traffic days, the bulk of our visitors came from sites quoting us and linking back to us. I’d say that, if anything, aggregators to much more good than harm.