3 ms·

I think I'm missing something on as far as the copyright issues of this project.... You say that you're downloading the entire internet for content, and that y

I think I'm missing something on as far as the copyright issues of this project.... You say that you're downloading the entire internet for content, and that you'll be serving it up to your readers directly for the various reasons that you site through your app. If you're linking to the content, no issues. But this doesn't sound like linking: you're stripping the content, and now you're serving it to your readers yourself, so isn't that taking the content from the provider and using it for your own purposes? Are you only doing this with providers that gave you permission to do so? And if not, is there some sort of fair use clause that you see applies here? Just very curious as to how you see this model working with copyrighted content (and/or definitely let me know if I'm just missing the model here/misreading what was written in your post...end of a long day! ;-)

Swizec 16y ago
We are serving the content ourselves, but we fully attribute it to the source and provide a link to the original website. We aren't doing anything much worse than for example the browser cache does when loading up a cached website.
- zmmmmm 16y ago
  I'm with msredmond - this seems very dubious legally. You might think it is not much different to a browser cache but inserting a third party in a distribution process in fact makes a huge difference legally. Flipboard got into trouble and they were less problematic than what you are doing, unless I misunderstand exactly what is going on.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
  If that is all you are doing, even if it were not legal, I do not think anyone would have any worry, but you mention that you might want to take away the annoying ads from the content, which, changes everything completely and probably makes it illegal.
  - nolite 16y ago
    Sorry, but people love to throw the "legal" word around loosely alot. Lets be specific here? What "law" would this be breaking? Who would enforce it, and under which jurisdiction? What case has set a precedent? If this is illegal, then what about search engine caches, the wayback machine?
    - coderdude 16y ago
      >If this is illegal, then what about search engine caches, the wayback machine? The difference between what search engines/the Wayback Machine do and what a service like his does is that the former caches more of less complete copies of the content without the intent to strip anything out (save for the view as text only feature in Google's cache), while his service is stripping out the monetization schemes of the content owners. Although he links back to them (which he absolutely must do anyway), the content owners might become angry that they aren't getting the traffic and the chance to have their ads clicked. I think that is a reasonable viewpoint for the content owners to have, yet I also want to believe that a service like his should be able to exist. Perhaps some kind of middle ground can be achieved where he does show the ads but perhaps well organized at the bottom or middle of the article or something. What would the content owners be able to do though? Maybe send DMCA notices. This would fall under copyright infringement laws I think. I'm no lawyer though. I also think there should be some kind of allowances for these kinds of content repurposes.
      - msredmond 16y ago
        I think the big issue here is that if you own the content, and the other person is making money off that content without your consent, that's a problem (as in potential liability). One way around that is to make absolutely no revenue from it -- some publishers may not care. I don't know that would solve any problem, but do know that's worked for others (and in fact it's rumored -- or maybe even confirmed -- that that's the reason Google doesn't run ads on Google news, and for the most part they're not even using the full story)
    - thomasz 16y ago
- msredmond 16y ago
  In a way I can see how you got there, but I still think you may have copyright issues: Say, for example, there's a Web site that likes an article another Web site has published. So that first site grabs the entire article, post it on their Website without permission, and then give source and link information back --- most publishers are going to consider that a copyright violation. Again, would be different if not the entire article -- few paragraphs and a link would be OK, but with entire article and no previous permission, probable copyright violation (at least enough to request it be taken down). I know law changes/not everyone sees it the same/different courts rule differently, but if one accepts that taking an article in full and republishing on another site (even if sourced/linked back) without permission is a copyright violation, I'm not sure that you doing the same thing (and on a wider scale) isn't also a copyright violation, even if the final article is presented on a different medium. I'm so very much not a lawyer (pretty obviously), just someone with a publishing background, but it might be worth you talking with a copyright lawyer just to make sure you're on solid ground before you launch it with the content/way you're currently planning.

Swizec 16y ago

We are serving the content ourselves, but we fully attribute it to the source and provide a link to the original website. We aren't doing anything much worse than for example the browser cache does when loading up a cached website.

zmmmmm 16y ago
I'm with msredmond - this seems very dubious legally. You might think it is not much different to a browser cache but inserting a third party in a distribution process in fact makes a huge difference legally. Flipboard got into trouble and they were less problematic than what you are doing, unless I misunderstand exactly what is going on.
Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
If that is all you are doing, even if it were not legal, I do not think anyone would have any worry, but you mention that you might want to take away the annoying ads from the content, which, changes everything completely and probably makes it illegal.
- nolite 16y ago
  Sorry, but people love to throw the "legal" word around loosely alot. Lets be specific here? What "law" would this be breaking? Who would enforce it, and under which jurisdiction? What case has set a precedent? If this is illegal, then what about search engine caches, the wayback machine?
  - coderdude 16y ago
    >If this is illegal, then what about search engine caches, the wayback machine? The difference between what search engines/the Wayback Machine do and what a service like his does is that the former caches more of less complete copies of the content without the intent to strip anything out (save for the view as text only feature in Google's cache), while his service is stripping out the monetization schemes of the content owners. Although he links back to them (which he absolutely must do anyway), the content owners might become angry that they aren't getting the traffic and the chance to have their ads clicked. I think that is a reasonable viewpoint for the content owners to have, yet I also want to believe that a service like his should be able to exist. Perhaps some kind of middle ground can be achieved where he does show the ads but perhaps well organized at the bottom or middle of the article or something. What would the content owners be able to do though? Maybe send DMCA notices. This would fall under copyright infringement laws I think. I'm no lawyer though. I also think there should be some kind of allowances for these kinds of content repurposes.
    - msredmond 16y ago
      I think the big issue here is that if you own the content, and the other person is making money off that content without your consent, that's a problem (as in potential liability). One way around that is to make absolutely no revenue from it -- some publishers may not care. I don't know that would solve any problem, but do know that's worked for others (and in fact it's rumored -- or maybe even confirmed -- that that's the reason Google doesn't run ads on Google news, and for the most part they're not even using the full story)
  - thomasz 16y ago
msredmond 16y ago
In a way I can see how you got there, but I still think you may have copyright issues: Say, for example, there's a Web site that likes an article another Web site has published. So that first site grabs the entire article, post it on their Website without permission, and then give source and link information back --- most publishers are going to consider that a copyright violation. Again, would be different if not the entire article -- few paragraphs and a link would be OK, but with entire article and no previous permission, probable copyright violation (at least enough to request it be taken down). I know law changes/not everyone sees it the same/different courts rule differently, but if one accepts that taking an article in full and republishing on another site (even if sourced/linked back) without permission is a copyright violation, I'm not sure that you doing the same thing (and on a wider scale) isn't also a copyright violation, even if the final article is presented on a different medium. I'm so very much not a lawyer (pretty obviously), just someone with a publishing background, but it might be worth you talking with a copyright lawyer just to make sure you're on solid ground before you launch it with the content/way you're currently planning.