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So using your logic, I'm totally free to copy-paste the entirety of a New York Times article onto my website and sell ads on that content...as long as I credit

So using your logic, I'm totally free to copy-paste the entirety of a New York Times article onto my website and sell ads on that content...as long as I credit the author? I think the lawyers of the NYT may have a different opinion about that. The fact is, Buzzfeed was able to get away with stealing content from reddit and selling ads on it because no reddit user was ever going to hire a lawyer to sue them over it. Also, I've certainly seen Buzzfeed content that was taken from Reddit without attribution.

staticassertion 5y ago
Presumably NYT has a different EULA/TOS/Copyright restrictions. It's explicitly not stealing content.
rhino369 5y ago
That would be copyright infringement, but as long as its 100% clear that you are quoting or paraphrasing the NYTimes its not plagiarism. It's also not journalism or really even writing. I would even call it stealing content. But plagiarism is about passing someone else's work off as yours.
danso 5y ago
I believe the New York Times would threaten to sue you — if they noticed you and cared enough (which I assume they would if you were operating a large enough site). But also, when you post content to Reddit, you've granted them a (non-exclusive) license to reproduce it as they please. If Reddit's okay with Buzzfeed's reprinting, then I don't think it would legally been seen as stealing either. In any case, your objection seems to be that plagiarism and repurposing of content (legal or not) fulfills the same evil end: profit from the labor of others. Sure, I'm not necessarily arguing against that. But I'm pointing out there's an additional element to plagiarism, which is the implication of independent, original reporting. To use a screenshot from the investigative article, which shows the Reuters and the Snopes version of a Supreme Court ruling: https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-08/13/0/asset/a6e01396a09f/sub-buzz-410-1628815441-13.png?downsize=800:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-08/13/0... By restating Reuters' assertions without attribution, Snopes implicitly implies that it has done the independent reporting and research (e.g. calling up the attorneys, downloading and reading the court docket). And the apparent "fact" that this Kentucky court clerk is denying licenses based on her religious beliefs becomes significantly more established "fact" when two different journalism outlets have independently confirmed it. Snopes ostensible speciality is gathering and summarizing established facts, which includes filtering through the noise of fakery and also, redundant information. Committing plagiarism is not just immoral, but a direct attack on Snopes' reason for existence, and that what makes this situation especially notable beyond "Doesn't everyone do growth hacks?"
p49k 5y ago
That's not what Buzzfeed is doing, though - they are taking individual quotes and snippets from the Reddit thread and weaving them into a narrative and description written in their own words. You could in fact do the same with a NYT article and it wouldn't be copyright infringement; there are many, many publications which create such articles based on mainstream news sources.

staticassertion 5y ago

Presumably NYT has a different EULA/TOS/Copyright restrictions. It's explicitly not stealing content.

rhino369 5y ago

That would be copyright infringement, but as long as its 100% clear that you are quoting or paraphrasing the NYTimes its not plagiarism. It's also not journalism or really even writing. I would even call it stealing content. But plagiarism is about passing someone else's work off as yours.

danso 5y ago

I believe the New York Times would threaten to sue you — if they noticed you and cared enough (which I assume they would if you were operating a large enough site). But also, when you post content to Reddit, you've granted them a (non-exclusive) license to reproduce it as they please. If Reddit's okay with Buzzfeed's reprinting, then I don't think it would legally been seen as stealing either. In any case, your objection seems to be that plagiarism and repurposing of content (legal or not) fulfills the same evil end: profit from the labor of others. Sure, I'm not necessarily arguing against that. But I'm pointing out there's an additional element to plagiarism, which is the implication of independent, original reporting. To use a screenshot from the investigative article, which shows the Reuters and the Snopes version of a Supreme Court ruling: https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-08/13/0/asset/a6e01396a09f/sub-buzz-410-1628815441-13.png?downsize=800:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-08/13/0... By restating Reuters' assertions without attribution, Snopes implicitly implies that it has done the independent reporting and research (e.g. calling up the attorneys, downloading and reading the court docket). And the apparent "fact" that this Kentucky court clerk is denying licenses based on her religious beliefs becomes significantly more established "fact" when two different journalism outlets have independently confirmed it. Snopes ostensible speciality is gathering and summarizing established facts, which includes filtering through the noise of fakery and also, redundant information. Committing plagiarism is not just immoral, but a direct attack on Snopes' reason for existence, and that what makes this situation especially notable beyond "Doesn't everyone do growth hacks?"

p49k 5y ago

That's not what Buzzfeed is doing, though - they are taking individual quotes and snippets from the Reddit thread and weaving them into a narrative and description written in their own words. You could in fact do the same with a NYT article and it wouldn't be copyright infringement; there are many, many publications which create such articles based on mainstream news sources.