The music news sites, like Cybergrass, have been covering the music piracy issue and damage caused by the illegal coping of music for years. Now, we’re the ones with others copying our material, in its entity, for their own use and profit. Some news piracy sites even claim copyright on the works of other web sites. In the past couple of months, I’ve found our content on multiple sites, being used without any notification or permission.
I regularly run an audit and analysis of where our articles are mentioned or linked. For example, our content is always on Google’s News page for “Bluegrass Music.” It is easily noticed when our articles show up daily on other sites as the number of articles and the new URL jump to the top of the list. Many of those carry our syndicated content — no problem there — that’s what we want. A few others are simply taking our entire daily content and directly copying it to their own site as their own created work. That is the problem. That is news piracy.
While Cybergrass news is syndicated to other sites, it is done is a mutually beneficial manner. The other sites carry our feed that contains the opening paragraph and then readers click to come to our site to read the remainder of the article. The other sites get some value added benefit for their regular readers and, we get visits from those who desire reading the entire story. It is a win-win situation and both sites benefit in a positive way.
Our site, like most others, is advertising supported so, if another site steals our content for their own monetary gain, then they are no better than those who copy music illegally. Just like many who copy the music, news pirates see nothing wrong with what they are doing. One site even tried to convince me that they were “helping” us! How they help us by using our work, without compensation, and then making money off of our labor and robbing us of readers, is helping us, I have yet to figure out. Yet, in their warped view of the world, illegal copying of news articles from others to place on their own site is somehow ethical as long as they say where they stole it from.
In many of the news pirate sites, there is absolutely no original content. There is nothing that could even closely resemble “Fair Use.” The only thing on these sites is 100% content that was taken from other business web sites. If readers read the entire article on a news pirate site, then why would they have any reason to visit the source? They don’t. If 100% of the content from other sites is illegally copied to the pirate site, then why would people even bother visiting the source sites? There would be no reason. This is not a win-win situation and is certainly not mutually beneficial. It is detrimental to those who create, format, illustrate and post the original material.
There really is no reason at all for this. Legitimate sites get on press distributions and we all receive the same information from the media agents. These pirate sites could certainly do the same thing. We edit, update and create our own articles also. The pirate sites could also do this. Of course, doing it legitimately requires work and effort. I realize it is easier to copy than write just as it is easier to destroy than create. I hope these pirate sites see the error in their ways and start being constructive and creative and actually contributing to the bluegrass music news arena.
Volume dilution is already splitting the readership pie into ever smaller slices as more news sites come online. That’s normal healthy competitive business. News pirates rob the creators of legitimate sites of revenue while stealing readers at the same time. This isn’t healthy or constructive to anybody. The only person benefiting from the theft of others intellectual property is the news pirate.
I am happy to see that the sites that stole our material have ceased doing so. After a review yesterday, I see that other legitimate sites are also not being carried on some of the news pirate sites. I hope others that create original content also help put the news pirate sites out of business. We have enough copyright problems and issues in the music industry already. We really don’t need a new form of piracy.
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Credit to the original article:
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGnqeH2WO_lUkGdxn24I3V5Dp5XMA&url=http://www.cybergrass.com/node/1273