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Jeff Dorgay & TONEAudio Declare War on CA


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16 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

Jeff has one reasonable option: Stop syndication via RSS. 

 

Yeah that's how it should work ... however IANAL but my understanding is that publishing RSS does not automatically renounce copyright ... easiest to just remove the feed entirely

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1 minute ago, plissken said:

 

Chris isn't infringing however. 

 

A court would decide. He could be considered to after the publisher demands he take down. Again IANAL but my understanding is that without an explicit copyright notice its a gray area -- note that Aaron Swartz went on to participate in the Creative Commons effort designed to license internet content. I knew all the folks at the time and participated in discussions so know these issues exist.

 

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34 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Let's see if I can provide a hypothetical closer to home.

 

Quote

 

Suppose there is a photo sharing service called "PSS" that takes photos from your website and sends them out to people who are interested in your work, including private parties, dealers who may display photographers' work on their sites, etc. 

 

By publishing a photo, it doesn’t automatically give the right of another publisher to republish ie copy the photo. That’s the point here. 

 

Of course its the intention of RSS, according to the designers and most users of RSS to allow republishing ie syndication. 

 

Unfortunately my understanding is that copyright law does not take into account that an RSS document is different than an HTML or text document or PDF.

 

You are not necessarily allowed to copy or republish a document which isn’t s copyrighted. Is the RSS copyrighted? That’s an important question.

Quote

You can set your PSS to share a couple of photos as a teaser and a link to your own site, or to share every last photo. Either intentionally or accidentally, you set your PSS to send all your photos. The traffic to your website drops. 

 

Is the better solution *for you* to start contacting people who've been getting your PSS feed and demand they each take down all the photos you send, or all but a couple, or to click a mouse and set your PSS to share a couple of photos and a link? 

 

Of course it shouldn’t be this way but the copyright law wasn’t written properly for the Internet (in my opinion)

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1 hour ago, wgscott said:

 

The relevant point here is that he is not representing the content as his own.

 

If the RSS feed pushed only the title, and he had some other mechanism to scrape the content and deposit it on his website, then maybe you would have a valid objection.  But the RSS feed itself pushed the content, whether out of intent or ignorance is not relevant.  The source is attributed, and it links back to the source, thus potentially generating internet traffic for the original site.

 

Aaron Swartz republished documents behind a paywall, not documents that were pushed by RSS.  

 

If Nature pushed its entire content by RSS feed, and Aaron Swartz aggregated and displayed that feed, he would not have committed an infringement (intentional or otherwise).

 

-- note that Aaron Swartz went on to commit suicide.

 

I know these details very well. I know the intention of designers of RSS very very well. I also know that people’s intentions about how the Web is supposed to work, and that information should be free, are not what the law says. Copyright is copyright and that can allow bad things.

 

I believe Aaron had great intentions but unfortunately got caught on the wrong side of the legal system. Terrible.

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33 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

They say "jury may be out on this." Another firm says the same at greater length:

 

"In general, copying material without permission of the copyright owner is copyright infringement. However, there is an interesting legal question raised by RSS. By making your website available by RSS, are you granting permission for others to republish your RSS feed?

 

"In other words, RSS is an abbreviation, which includes the word “Syndication.” Syndication generally means that the owner is making the material available to be accessed in other locations, which is essentially republishing. To my knowledge, the courts have not come up with a clear answer to whether republishing an RSS feed is actually copyright infringement."

 

So the situation is in fact the opposite of how you described it - the answer is unclear. 

Even more unclear because the acronym itself could be:

 

1) RDF Site Summary

2) Rich Site Summary

3) Really Simple Syndication

 

but it’s an XML document ?

 

* Extra credit: How do you determine what “RSS” means? There’s a proposed but unofficial way ... anyone know?

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24 minutes ago, wgscott said:

 

I had someone legally threaten me once to take down a copy of a Letter to the Editor of a newspaper (in response to one of her own).  I refused to take it down simply because I did not want to allow a bully to get their way.  

 

Interesting because I assume you didn’t sign over copyright of the letter you wrote.

 

I once was the editor of a document specification, one that I contributed primary development of, as well a software that operated on, and became an ASTM standard. 

I published the document format on my website. After it became an ASTM standard I received a nasty letter requiring me to take down the standard from the Web.

S*it — how would anyone find out about it? Oh fork out $$$ for an ASTM standards book! 

So I kept a “draft” copy up, one that I had put my own copyright notice on, and promptly quit the ASTM committee — at least the W3C freely publishes its documents.

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2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

... I prefer to expose bullies who threaten to call lawyers and who literally say the war is on. 

 

This isn't about a spectacle. It's about shedding light on threatening behavior.

 

Perfectly acceptable to bring this into the court of public opinion.

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1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Then you understood it. Really. Because they're making the point that copyright law is not settled regarding republication of RSS feeds. 

Right. If you look at the XML namespace definition for “RSS” it is a URI which links to a document describing the RSS specification (there are several versions). In the RSS specification there is the possibility of a copyright value. When an explicit copyright is included in an RSS document, the intention of the copyright holder is clear. When the value is not present, the copyright is not clear. However email clarification would hold a certain weight. The fact that the spec itself provides fro a copyright field would indicate that RSS documents are intended to be at the very least possibly copyrighted. I can’t imagine you’d advise anyone to fight this unless for publicity.

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32 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

Would not the copyright issue (let's just assume that ALL RSS documents are inherently copyrighted) be besides the point in that by using RSS you legally intend to syndicate and that by doing so you don't have a legal claim against someone (such as Chris) who utilizes your syndication (in this case, a particular technical implementation - RSS)?

 

Err no. One could intend to syndicate for individual consumption only. Just because someone provides an RSS does not mean that they intend to allow another site to republish. For example the RSS could include these different examples:

 

<copyright>(c) John Smith 2018, all rights reserved. Not for republication</copyright>

 

or

 

<copyright>(c) John Smith 2018. For personal consumption only</copyright>

 

or

 

<copyright>(c) John Smith 2018. May be used freely for noncommercial purposes</copyright>

 

Now aside from a copyright notice, where is the "legal intention" of the author described? That's the point.

Regarding syndication, do you really think that when a TV show is syndicated, for example, that you can record and then republish it?

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Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

You're getting into the weeds now. 

 

What is individual consumption? Read by a person?

 

If you believe individual consumption is not what we are doing here, what's your take on Feedly. A service that charges people to read RSS feeds?

 

Not really. First of all, I'm totally sympathetic and feel that that guy is acting like a d*ck.

 

That said, a copyright allows an author to determine how their document can be used. An SACD copyright holder can require that the SACD be played back only on specific hardware. There is also the issue of fair use and the exception for the library of congress -- that's getting into the weeds.

 

All I'm saying is that the RSS document is an XML document like any other XML document. You guys seem to think that enclosing an article in an <rss> tag somehow changes the copyright. Implicit is the idea that use of the <rss> tag carried a "meaning" or "intention". From a practical sense, that's the case. From a legal sense not so clear.

 

Folks seem to be arguing that because some guy publishes an article in an RSS document, that he grants everyone the ability to take the RSS document, reformat it and display it on their own website ... err no.

 

Now the copyright examples I've given are just examples and you can argue that I've not written them precisely -- fine -- but the point is that the author of the document can limit the use of the document with a copyright notice. That's the best way. Lack of a copyright notice doesn't mean the document isn't copyrighted and yeah you'd fight that out in court -- or not cause it would be a waste of time for everyone except for the lawyers.

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18 minutes ago, Jud said:

Guys - Judges and attorneys who actually *know the law* haven't come to any settled conclusion, so even if you all agreed we'd have a few guys agreeing on an Internet forum, right?  ?

 

The only thing I can think of less gripping than continuing the conversation is a long discussion by "amateur lawyers" about the copyright aspects. ?  

 

Ha! Judges and attorneys never come to any settled conclusion about anything even apparently decades after the supreme court has ruled! So apparently the distinction between amateur and professional lawyers is what they get to charge in hourly rates and what they get to call themselves O.o

 

... but on this specific topic, my comments are intended to describe that the intended "meaning" or semantics that ought be associated with an RSS document, eg expert witness ;)

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12 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

I am guessing that more than a couple of things that constitute the current standard of care in medicine won't stay settled. For some odd reason, though, not as many people like to play amateur brain surgeon as amateur lawyer. ? 

 

Most of the people who are involved in the semantics of documents aren't lawyers. http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/

One of the original RSS specifications: http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/spec which describe one of its main intended usages as a way to describe websites.

 

If someone wanted to say that someone's intention is x,y or z when creating a document there could be a phenomenal amount of very technical details that would go into determining this. or not.

 

Normally folks don't need to get this technical when they are simply publishing information and consuming information (as opposed to designing specifications and large scale software). Normally when there is a miscommunication folks get together and sort it out in a friendly fashion.

 

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16 minutes ago, GUTB said:

Time to take a neurotypical landing on the subject.

 

RSS is for public broadcast of content, and everyone knows it. If someone is broadcasting their own content accidentally, than the liability for broadcasting the content remains squarely on the shoulders of the party broadcasting — everyone knows that, too. Hiding willful ignorance behind anger because you’re going through sone kind of personal crisis doesn’t make anyone else at fault.

 

Right. Just like any website: everyone knows that "stereophile.com" is for the public broadcast of information.

The question isn't whether the information was intended to be published, it was. The question is whether the publisher intends to allow a third-party (http://computeraudiophile.com) to republish the article on a page within http://computeraudiophile.com

 

Now lets take a document published by http://www.stereophile.com :

it is an HTML document i.e. enclosed with

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en" dir="ltr">

...

</html>

 

It was public broadcast of content. Everyone knows that. Is Chris allowed to take this article and republish it under http://computeraudiophile.com ?

 

Folks seem to think that a document enclosed in <rss> is allowed to be freely republished but understand that a document enclosed in <html> isn't, right? So where is this supposed conclusion that "everyone knows" written down? Where is this assumption made? @Jud of course there are no specific laws that say this...

 

 

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29 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

But but but...but that is not an RSS tagged document.  RSS is designed for syndication - it is a technical implementation of intent.  If stereophile.com put out an RSS feed (perhaps they already do) then what would it mean for them to ask CA not to syndicate it and ToneAudio to?  It would be meaningless.

 

Have you read the RSS specifications? I've read each and every one of them over the years. RSS was not originally designed for syndication, rather to describe websites. Dave Winer realized that RSS would be a great way to syndicate and the rest is history. That said there is nothing that requires RSS to be used only for syndication, nor does use of the <rss> tag alone determine the intention of the author.

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2 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

I assume your question was rhetorical, but the answer is no, third parties are not allowed to reprint such content posted on stereophile.com without permission, other than in cases of defensible use under the Fair Use provision of US copyright law. Were Chris to do so, it would be an open-and-shut infringement of our copyright. And it is fair to note that Chris has always been supportive of our copyright when posters to this site post Stereophile's content to CA without permission.

 

For reprinting of an RSS feed, the answer is "it depends."

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

Of course the question was rhetorical. Of course ( @GUTB's everybody knows) the owners of Stereophile retain copyright to documents published on http://www.stereophile.com . You, as editor, are presumably authoritative regarding the permitted use of stereophile documents under copyright, including RSS documents.

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2 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Yes.  Did you send them a short write-up?

 

Oh they know.

 

<opinion ="on">

Look IMHO the copyright laws in this country, primarily including the DMCA, are substantially evil. In particular if I buy a Blu-Ray or DVD or SACD, I want the ability to rip these to disc. That's what I would call "fair use" ... I bought it and I should be able to use it. In fact, if the CD were encrypted the majority of this site probably either wouldn't exist, or would depend on "illegal activity" according to https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html#1201

That and net neutrality which is history. The Internet was founded by the govt and initially paid for by the govt and now has been taken over by big business. The airwaves are licensed which is fine but the govt can place restrictions on its licenses i.e. net neutrality, as well as granting the ability of AT&T or Time-Warner or whoever to have the right to run its wires on our streets -- in exchange for allowing these companies such access, we ought require net-neutrality.

But we don't because both the  Internet and our Government has been taken over by big business.

 

In any case there is a lot more evil about current copyright laws than the ability of some dumbass schmuck who doesn't understand the common intent of RSS to complain about Chris' use of his RSS. Whoopdee doo! (I know you are reading this because as I suggested, you just included a <copyright>). The best thing members of this site can do is ignore whoever it is writing about whatever magic cables.

 

In any case the EFF has very important issues to be concerned about.

</opinion>

 

Vote with your $$$$$

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, mansr said:

By making a campaign donation?

 

Your choice.

Different people have different capabilities.

You can support open software and hardware (time + skill = $$$$$)

-- some people can write it

-- other people can use it

You can be generous with your advice

You can chose to use products that support your values

You can chose to purchase unencrypted media (e.g. WAV/AIFF/DIFF/DSF/ISO)

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26 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Jabbr - I agree with your post above.  When I hit "The Internet was founded by the govt and initially paid for by the govt and now has been taken over by big business."  I could not help but think about the research (basic & otherwise) that is funded by tax dollars but has produced huge profits for drug and med. device co.s ...

 

A bigger potato...

 

Yep, and circling back to Aaron Swartz*** who, very sadly did commit suicide (at age 26) over fear of the judicial department throwing the book at him for "liberating" scientific articles which were behind a paywall, but which were very largely funded by our tax dollars, and who was also involved in the development of RSS (at age 13) --- these copyright issues are very real.

 

*** oh yeah he also co-founded Reddit: http://www.aaronsw.com/ and I know he was a technical consultant on the Creative Commons license https://creativecommons.org/2013/01/12/remembering-aaron-swartz/

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40 minutes ago, fnscg said:

I suspect that's why you copied Tone's legally protected content and forwarded it under your own brand name.  That makes you a thief.  Also, the less than positve things you've said about Jeff are slander and they will land you in court.

 

 

You are being a little bratty child who hasn't yet learned how to play nice in the internet sandbox.

 

First of all, you only inserted a copyright after I pointed out that RSS provides for copyright.

You provided a copy of your RSS document on your website and the act of downloading and using it does not constitute thievery but go ahead and call your parents and ask them about this.

How would Chris know how you intended to limit the usage of your RSS?

Now *after* you clarified that you don't want him to use the document that you provided, he removed the link to your RSS.

That how it works.

Don't be a little bratty web child.

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2 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 I can understand that sometimes they may wish to stop ONLY  Forums etc. that they consider are hostile to their organisation.

 

 

Here's the thing: they can't.

 

RSS is essentially a "pre-Google" technology. It is a way for a site to self-describe what the content of the site is. Google indexes sites without needing RSS. Google news aggregates news sites without needing RSS.

 

There's nothing to prevent someone from scraping a site's homepage and presenting a list of articles. There's nothing to prevent members of CA from reviewing articles, commenting on them and discussing them.

 

If Chris wants CA to be an audio news aggregator, he can do this whether or not each site publishes RSS.

 

So again, yeah you can technically copyright an RSS feed, and then demand that Chris not use the feed, but that's pretty stupid. As @Jud quotes: "you become what you fear". (is that Buddha or Nietzsche?)

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