Nimble Ferret Strikes Again!

Material from this Dover Canyon Winery Blog that appears on "TheWinery" site hosted by nimbleferret is stolen. 

Friendly wine sites and digests often post excerpts of other bloggers' writing but always offer a link--a trackback--to the original author's site.

As per this heated discussion on Tom Wark's blog Fermentation, this site snatches up posts from wine sites and posts the material as its own.  While it does list the source, the hotlink placed on the name takes the reader to a list of all our blog posts--on the nimbleferret site.

In the Fermentation discussion, Mr. Nimbleferret insists that his site always requests permission to use the material.  Which of course is utter bullshit. 

I would also like to point out to my esteemed colleagues in the wine blogging community that it is not necessary to acquire a formal copyright to retain absolute ownership of your published material.  A date, time and full name on the post is sufficient to identify it as material to which you own the copyright . . .

According to the United States Copyright Office, "Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright."

Fair use doctrine states that "it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports."  However, the nimbleferret site is not an authored site.  Although it describes itself as "part magazine, part newspaper" there is no original information produced by the owner.  There is no reporting, no commentary, no criticism.  In addition, theft of the entire article is not considered "fair use."

This site exists solely for the purpose of attracting crawler leads and links in order to create advertising revenue for the owner.  Therefore I have obliged by adding every single category on that site to keywords for this post.  Anyone looking for Nimble Ferret, nimbleferret, TheWinery, or any of its listed categories will be sure to see this post.

There is also specific information here at Google's Digital Millenium Copyright Act on filing an infringement notification.  This should be done for all the major search engines, as their terms of service agreements state that they will remove or disable access to offending sites in response to such a notice.

Thanks, Tom, for setting a standard in blogging independence and rights.

Comments

[nimbleferret]

This post has misinformation that needs to be clarified.

We were merely linking to articles on your site. If you clicked on the links they took you to *your* site. That is not a copyright infringement. Any feed reader (Bloglines, Google Reader, etc.) aggregates feeds in the same manner.

And yes, when we have placed entire articles on our site, we DO request permission. As previously mentioned, something went wrong with the system for the wine site, so to be conservative we just transitioned to linking to the source. This way there can be no complaints that we have "stolen" content -- the links on the wine site are directed to the original blog.

In any case, since you clearly don't even want us to link to you blog, we will cease doing this as well.

[Mary Baker]

Thank you. You are clearly NOT a "magazine" or "newspaper" and I do not support spamsurfing sites.

[nimbleferret]

Regardless of whether it qualifies as a magazine or newspaper, as already explained the site is clearly not a "spamsurfing site"

[Mary Baker]

Clearly not? I wonder what the baseball sites you've pirated at:

www.baseball.nimbleferret.com

will have to say. I've just fired off links and emails to Rain Delay, Phillies Nation, TwinsGeek, etc.

How you are going to explain that your "dysfunction" is not limited, nor has ever been limited, to the wine portion of your "website"?

[nimbleferret]

For some of the baseball sites there is content on the sites (for when we've been granted permission) and in other cases there are just links (for when we haven't been granted permission yet).

[Mike Duffy]

Hi, Mary:

The easiest way to deal with copyright issues is to report the infringement to the infringer's Internet Service Provider (ISP).

wine.Nimbleferret.com has a reported IP address of 209.132.200.51, which according to ARIN (the people who assign blocks of IP addresses) is owned by

WebHost4Life
209.132.200.0 - 209.132.201.255

who in turn "leases" it from

Alchemy Communications, Inc.
209.132.192.0 - 209.132.255.255

A message to abuse@alchemy.net should get some response. WebHost4Life publishes the hosting_abuse@webhost4life.com e-mail address for complaints.

Finally, Nimbleferret is copying images from the blog posts that they "link" to (the images displayed on nimbleferret have nimbleferret-based URLs), which is a pretty clear copyright violation.

I think if the various wine bloggers who are "linked to" from wine.nimbleferet.com write to the e-mail addresses above, action will be pretty quick in coming.

[Mary Baker]

Thank you, Mike! That's another issue I haven't even thought to address. When my posts were linked, the photos were included, but those are my personal property, from my personal camera.

Another thought: there was no attribution to the author/photographer on our site. The 'nimbleferret' pops gave credit to 'dover canyon' but I clearly post my real name, Mary Baker, under each post, with the date and time of the content. Also, the photographs are my personal property, and the photographs were reproduced in their entirety on the nimbleferret site without permission.

[nimbleferret]

That is not copyright infringement. Posting scaled down images (which is what we do) is NOT copyright infringement. That's exactly what Google and every other web portal does (e.g. http://images.google.com) And they are also storing the images on their own site when they do it.

Besides, posting the images generally improves the article click-thru rate. So it's a good thing for bloggers.

[Mary Baker]

Nims, I am beginning to admire your persistent defense of your site. You might be able to convince me that you really do mean well. However, I still have some serious reservations about the intent of nimbleferret.com.

First of all, you can hardly compare yourself to Google because you are not a search engine. Or are you? The purpose of your site is unclear, and in addition, it's stated purpose is blatantly misleading. Every page states that nimbleferret is a newspaper/magazine. Which it clearly is not. The site lifts material and photos strictly from blogs. Each page has a "Copyright 2006" at the bottom, but what exactly are you copyrighting? The search results? The artistic design of your page?

I also have an iffy feeling about motivation because each page has a title like TheWinery, StealingHome, etc. and a reader CANNOT link to nimbleferret's home page anywhere from the separate pages. It's almost as if you don't want us to know that the ferret has its toes in a lot of pies. I found the home page by guessing at the address: http://nimbleferret.com (no www.)

I grant that when you click on the title of a post you are taken to the original blog, but if you click on the NAME OF THE BLOG you are taken to another nimbleferret page presenting excerpts of every single post on the blog, again under the heading of being a newspaper/magazine, and with a copyright no less.

Frankly, I think nimbleferret is a cute name for a fetching service. But I think you should be honest about being a blog digest. You are not a magazine, nor a newspaper.

On digest pages for each blog you should provide a clear link at the top of the page, in large font, to the blog's main page--not just to separate posts from your page. There should also be (and I should think it would be to your benefit) a link to your home page on every topic page. There should also be an "About Us" link explaining your purpose and plans.

I see you are preparing to launch discussion forums for each topic. All of the quality discussion forums I frequent have owners or executive directors who are clearly identified and accountable. They are not afraid nor ashamed of their achievements, visibility and responsibilities. You asked me to remove my post identifying you and I refused. After sleeping on it, I have decided that I am still in the right. You have built a large, public website that pulls in content from real writers. You will be held accountable for that sooner or later.

I applaud your efforts to explain and work with the blogging community, and I hope that you will continue to do so.

[nimbleferret]

I persistently defend the site because I think that it is important to clarify the misperceptions.

Regarding comparisons to Google:
It's not just their search engine that aggregates blog posts/articles in a similar manner -- a number of their other products also do as well. A classic example would be http://news.google.com. Here they are aggregating news from over 4500 sources (generally from newspapers, but necessarily). The newspapers that they link to obviously like this arrangement as it drives traffic to their websites. Google also aggregates blog posts in a similar manner on their finance portal (not a search engine). For example: http://finance.google.com/finance?q=aapl&btnG=Search

Other than Google, I can think of dozens of other sites that do this as well:
* Topix.net (http://www.topix.net), which is owned by 3 large newspaper corporations, mixes both blog posts and newspaper articles in a similar manner.
* Findory.com does the same for both blogs and news -- they use personalization technology as well, something which we will add eventually.
* Technorati also does similar things on their Explore section (http://www.technorati.com/explore/)
* SeekingAlpha.com aggregates blog posts on investing. They post the full articles on their site.
* TailRank (http://www.tailrank.com/) is also similar. They use thumbnail images as well.
I could go on and on, there are tons of these types of sites. We're trying to create something unique here (the focus on niches like Topix but with a clear emphasis on blogs, with the personalization of Findory, but more of a community feel than any of these sites). Our universal tagging system is already the first feature that no other site seems to offer, but it is hopefully the first of many!

Regarding the Copyright 2006 notation:
The copyright is primarily for the name "NimbleFerret." It would probably extend to the design of the site, but that is questionable.

Regarding no links to the main page:
That's actually not correct. Every page links to the main page. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, there is a link to www.nimbleferret.com which has been there since day 1. We're not trying to hide it, but we're also not trying to emphasize it. While I think the "niche" sites are useful in their present state, the main site is not useful yet. It's just a massive mish-mash of blog posts. I wouldn't call that useful -- at least I wouldn't personally use it. Once the personalization features are added, the main site will become increasingly useful. For now though, the focus IS on the niche sites. That said, we intentionally link to the main page for anyone that is interested.

Regarding post listings for each blog:
The way we implemented this is pretty consistent with the way most similar sites (such as the ones listed above) have implemented it. That said, I think that your suggestion to spruce up that page a little, and maybe add a direct link to the blog at the top of the list, is a good idea. All in due time!

Regarding "About Us" link:
Yup, we definitely intend to add this sort of stuff. But you have to remember that this site is fairly new and we have been more focused on preparing the basic functionality to run the site. But it's no secret that when it comes to websites, people are more likely to use your website if they get a little bit of an explanation of how the site works, why they should use it, etc.

As for the materials attempting to identify me, yes I feel that they should be removed as they are a clear violation of Typepad's TOS (you can't use my IP address which Typepad priveleges you with for those purposes, especially not posting it online). Hopefully you will reconsider.

Anyways, I hope that this continues to add a little more clarity regarding the site.

[Mary Baker]

Thanks for the detailed response, Nims. I hope you will reconsider soon identifying yourself, so the blogging community can get to know you better.

As you develop your site, please remember that just because an action is possible and legal does not mean it's right. Our winery has a bathroom open to the public, and visitors could argue that because it is for the public and the amenities are provided for guests, they could take all the toilet paper and hand towels. And once or twice a year someone does. Even the bud vase and flowers. They are within their rights--after all, it's not up to me to decide how much sanitary stationery people have a right to. But it's rude, to both the host and the next person looking for it.

I hope you will remember that the material you intend to base your site on is on the internet for everyone to read and enjoy. Facilitating that is good. Capturing it in any way is rude. Your best bet for success is in befriending the blogging community first. It won't do your business any good to build readership if your best 'suppliers' refuse to participate.

[nimbleferret]

I think what a few people fail to realize is that the vast majority of bloggers (assuming the hundreds that I've contacted are representative of the whole) only really care about *1* thing. They want to be heard. They don't want to be typing out blog posts everyday for an audience of 1. So ANYWAY that they can get their blog posts out to a wider audience is great to them.

Furthermore, our desire to keep content on our site (*with bloggers permission*) is really for functionality purposes FAR MORE than ad revenue. We're not rolling around in Adsense revenues -- they don't even cover the hosting/bandwith costs. And if the site becomes more popular, we'd even consider reducing the amount of advertising on the post pages if it improved user experience (there's a happy tradeoff in there). As for functionality purposes: we're targetting a mainstream, less web-savvy audience. These sorts of people get confused when links start jumping them over to different sites. This is sometimes hard for more web-savvy people to understand (ANYONE with a blog today, by my definition, is relatively web-savvy). This is the very reason why Yahoo gets permission to keep news on their news site, but Google (so far) doesn't care to (Yahoo's audience is mainstream, Google's is far more web-savvy). Furthermore, by keeping content on the site, we'll be able to do other neat things to improve functionality like recommending related articles by different bloggers on the same page as the post.

Also, we don't engage in activities that are legal "but not right", so I don't think that cautionary statement applies to the NF site anymore than it should apply to anyone else. It's a truism.

[nimbleferret]

One other point: the mainstream audience that we are after is WHY we refer to the sites as magazine/newspaper hybrids -- everyone knows magazines and newspapers are. I don't know what the best name for the sites is, but we need to make it sure it is something that our audience can relate to.

I consider many blogs to be essentially magazines. If I was creating a blog for a mainstream audience, I would never call it a blog. I'd call it a magazine. Think: glossy, full color photos, articles on niche topics, etc. We really want our sites to resemble magazines as much as possible. There are also similarities with newspapers. Many bloggers report on news events or offer editorials on "topics of the day." With the exception of a few magazines, most people get this sort of content from newspapers. We also syndicate our content, and if you've opened up a newspaper recently, you obviously know that a significant portion of the news in them is syndicated or essentially syndicated.

I think over the years, however, perception of magazines has fared better than newspapers. Thanks to the internet, however, neither has done well in recent years. But I think that given the popularity of blogs, it's becoming clear that the only part of newspapers that today's consumer is interested in are the editorials.

So all in, I think there's similarities in the sites with both magazines and newspapers, although the interaction/community that we want to facilitate (as evidenced by having forums, and other features in future) does not exist in either medium. But every mainstream consumer knows what magazines and newspapers are -- a source of topical articles, news, opinions, etc. -- which is essentially what you can find at the NF sites.

[a reader]

Thanks for running the DiG/nslookup lookup on nimbleferret.com, Mike.

After reading these comments and Tom's original post, I've decided to blacklist nimbleferret.com. Ah - the power of the .htaccess file on a server.

I'll also be checking my log files a little more closely in the future in the event NF decides to move to a new host.

Lastly, I've spoken to several others who have blogs being scraped by NF without permission and am working with them to prevent access by NF.

I'm all for NF providing the type of service they claim to be offering, but...

1. I don't believe them
2. They've now lost their opportunity to convince me otherwise

So ladies and gents, let us turn this conversation around to something more positive...

What marketing lessons did we learn from this that we can apply to our businesses?

[GamerAndy]

Hi,
I believe I was one of the bloggers contacted in regards to this, since one of our posts is currently headlining nimbeferret.com and I have never been contacted in any way. I'll be blacklisting as well. Frankly, I'm happy with the average 300k page views and 2.8 million+ hits we pull in a month and don't need a profiteering leech using our content as spambait. This will be the 4th site i've dealt with that has done this exact same thing. Just because you have access to our RSS feed does NOT give you the right to pirate original, CLEARLY protected content (see copyright info at the bottom of the page). The reason i'm posting this here instead of on my site is because I don't want to divert any of our curious readers to your mish-mash of stolen thoughts.

Shame on you sir.
It's people like you who give the internet a bad name.

Adam Levine
Editor, GamerAndy.com
adam.levine@GamerAndy.com

[nimbleferret]

Adam,

We're not "stealing your content." We're providing a very brief excerpt, which is acceptable by fair use, with a LINK TO YOUR SITE so that readers can read the article. This drives traffic to your site -- i.e. it's a good thing for you. In any case, I've excluded the blog since you clearly don't want to be linked to.

The permission that we've requested of bloggers are the ones whom we've requested to host their content on our pages. It is not necessary to request permission just to excerpt-and-link. This is exactly what search engines do. (In fact, search engines go one step further and provide a cached page, which IS somewhat questionable).

In any case, I've removed any links to your site now.

[Rob Cole]

NF, perhaps if you made a much more clear link to the sites from which you excerpt the material, that would help to placate them. And when one clicks on "Read More" at the end of these excerpts, that should take the reader to the original post on the original site.

I think it sounds like a good idea, what you intend to do, I just think it seems like you're going about it the wrong way right now.

[nimbleferret]

Rob, I think you are miunderstanding (although that is not surprising considering the misinformation that has been spread around by others). We have requested permission from all of those blogs whose posts are located on our site. They are happy with the arrangement (in most cases truly ecstatic actually), so they certainly don't need to be placated.