on the table related to TopTenSources.com that is also very instructive in the context of copyright legalities and such. There is evidence of questionable faith on the part of the company (Newsilike Media Group) in that they do not seem to respect CC licenses. Considering their Original Bloggers page, I noted that they re-publish the feed from Matt Haughey’s blog, which is published under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. That license clearly states that “If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.” Well, TopTenSources has done exactly that, but have not published the resulting work (the entire site) under the same license – they assert copyright.
I agree with John Palfrey and the other experts who write on this field that this is a critically important issue. But it’s never going to be solved when even companies like the Newsilike Media Group with such expert and well-regarded supporters as Palfrey don’t take it seriously. Actions speak louder than words. Or blog posts.
Update: You know this if you read the comments here, but if you don’t I think it bears mentioning on the index pages of this blog. John Palfrey noted the issue I raised in this post and asked the company to address it, and so they have done. I think that’s a good demonstration of the kind of leadership that will serve us all well as Web 2.0 is invented.
John Palfrey says
Good point — that should come out.
-JP
Michael says
Great to hear that you think so, John.
Just a note that I toned down some of the rhetoric (my first pass is often more pointed than it needs to be). Also, note that I think services like this SHOULD exist. I just think that when they devise their business plans they worry too much about technology and not enough about business processes and such.
A quick, robust, and fair process by which permission may be secured should, to my eye, be one of the most important passages in the business plan, and should further be used to distinguish a company in the marketplace – even becoming the foundation for some policy and PR interventions to shape the issue for both the public and the policymakers.
John Palfrey says
Looks like it is fixed, or at least in the process of being fixed, at Top10 Sources, including insertion of a SA license on all pages to cover all content that is shared through an in-bound SA license. Thanks for the pointer; that was plainly an oversight that needed fixing.
-JP
Michael says
Wow – that’s a very quick change. This is the kind of reaction and principled consideration of issues that’s going to be needed to resolve these kinds of issues effectively for both aggregators and publishers as we move forward.