a) I get that when you copy an entire piece, that’s bad. But say you quote from another blog post. I read your blog and you quoted just enough so I don’t have to check out the other blog, is that called scraping as well? I mean, both sources don’t get the traffic they deserve, both don’t make the cash they could have made.

If the quoting is already scraping, then a lot of people scrape. ;-)

b) How do you want to deal with duplicate content, period? I mean, look at the countless sites that mirror wikipedia or programming manuals. They all get more traffic than the original source. And by going to another website — even if they are not as blatant to place Adsense on it — it “harms” the original source. I just don’t see anyone taking any action there.

c) Are feedreaders scraping too? That’s the proclaimed revolution. E.g., I can read my news in Google Reader and be done with it. Don’t have to go to CenterGigaCrunch and read them all there. :D (Just kidding.)

This is all so more obvious when it comes to papers in the school. The definition seems to be obvious and non-grey. It’s also unacceptable period. Whereas in general on the web a lot of people “use” whatever is available without giving back.

Perhaps you could try to define some terms, rather than just throw them around.
Quoting a source with citation is not “scraping.”

At the very least you should distinguish a “quotation” that lacks a citation to the source, from one that does. IMO, that’s scraping.

If you want to quibble over how much content is quotable without permission, that’s a different matter.

I dislike the manner in which you present your argument, and I would call your titles “flagrant flame-bait.”

scraping is easily defined as past a quote – in the example I provided on SAI – it’s not a quote – it’s a scrape. Actually as for defining the terms as you note, I did that. I know not everyone knows all the terms used in the industry so I agree it’s important for clarity.

I will have more on this matter tonight most likely – but for now I need to work on my startup! Thanks for stopping by.

Re: Huffpost the same comment I left on SAI and in a post: the main issue here to me was that they were pulling the full content, not part of it. Second to that: that they are pulling half content without permission.

I’m actually not against the general idea, and we do it an a very small scale but only with permission. I get the traffic argument from Huffpost for example, but ultimately the only safe way to syndicate this sort of stuff is with permission up front, and why the Huffpost isn’t asking for it is beyond me, given they’d find a cast of thousands happy to sign up. I’d suggest SAI could probably find sites that would play as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Amount_and_substantiality

But I think the bigger issue isn’t so much the legal question of what constitutes copyright violation as the ethical issue of leeching off of someone’s content by outwitting them at the SEO game. As far as I can tell, the approach that these sites are taking is to grab search traffic that would otherwise have gone to the articles they excerpt.

More at The Noisy Channel:

http://thenoisychannel.com/2008/12/20/fair-use-and-seo/

I rarely see an SAI post that isn’t being covered by at least 3 other publications. Sometimes I click thru to SAI, sometimes I do not. If they are the “lead” I most certainly do click thru, but I also always check out 1 or2 of the other posts on the topic.

From my perspective, there is VERY little original content, and even less is worthy of reading. It seems to come down to comments as a metric for which links I will click on for a given topic. I always read the AllthingsD posts, but quickly close the tab because there are rarely comment strings of interest (though when they are present, they are really good). However, on SAI, I may not read the article (because it is a “scrape”), but only check out the comments.

It seems clear to me that bloggers that are focused on providing consistently good original content, rather than bitching about traffic and credit as they relate to content, will receive the attention they deserve. Perhaps that is an optimistic perspective.

I just wanted to thank you for fighting the good fight on here. Keep it up.

I read your social median post before this and have been reading all the posts about the HuffPo/Reader situation. I publish a local aggregator and blog network in Chicago called The Windy Citizen and while the HuffPo has never lifted full articles from us, their aggressive approach to aggregation has certainly been awfully tempting to copy on our aggregator. Right now we limit description text our users can paste in to 350 characters like Digg. I feel ok about that.

Anyway, what’s so interesting about the discussion here, on the Wired article, over at SAI and even on the Chicago Reader’s blog entries is how many people respond to a different argument than the one being made. The problem isn’t bloggers lifting quotes or event 1-2 paragraphs. The problem is them lifting whole stories without checking first out of pure greed and laziness.

You’ve iterated that several times in this post and in the social median post, and yet people leave comments like “What’s your problem with people posting excerpts and quotes?”

This sort of reality distortion field makes it very hard to have an intelligent conversation. If you say you don’t like A and the person responds with “What’s your problem with B?” then you’re kind of out of luck.

Look at the quotes in the Wired article from the guy at the HuffPo. The Wired guy tells him people have an issue with them lifting full stories. His response:

“You tease, you pull out a piece of it, and then you have a headline or link out,” Peretti said. “Generally publishers are psyched to have a link.”

He’s not responding to the actual complaint. He’s responding to a stupid complaint that no one’s voicing. It’s irrational.

There was a lot of this in your social median post discussion, too. You asked why they were allowing full article scrapes. And the CEO would tell you why they allow partial summaries. That’s not what you asked about. I’m sure there’s a technical term for this kind of deliberate rhetorical obfuscation but “reality distortion field” seems as good a description as any. By responding to the actual question asked, scrapers tacitly acknowledge that they’re scraping full stories, which they can never do.

Anyway, keep up the good fight.

And remember, Techcrunch is the biggest kid on the block. They don’t scrape.

SEO of course is the major factor with scraping but it’s also about generating "fake" content which can be monetized by both the act of the scrape plus the conversation around the scrape.

I love henry’s argument that as long as he is sending you some traffic you should shutup and like it. It’s like the weathly or the famous shouldn’t serve time for crimes they commit.

There is a difference btw an application like Socialmedian scraping and a blog like alley insider scraping. Both are bad but the claims will be different.

It’s really not that hard to create good, compelling content. But when you go for the easy, cheap way, you will always lose.