Bnet's Catching Flack Doesn't Catch Query Posting Problem
When I posted about HARO queries being posted on a blog, I guess I must have hit a nerve, as both Mediabistro's PR Newser and Bnet's Catching Flack picked up on it. (Must have been a slow news minute in the blogosphere.)
Unfortunately, I think that Jon Greet on Catching Flack didn't catch what was really going on. First, he seemed to take exception with Shankman's taking exception with the PR person taking the queries and putting them on a blog:
Under both international and US copyright law, as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, people do not have the right to take copyrighted material and post it on the web, absent a fair use argument. Posting something in its entirety on a commercial site as a way to attract traffic could be a textbook example of something that was not fair use. And the person whose copyright has been infringed has a number of legal remedies, just as the shop owner who has been robbed has.
In addition, Greer called the letter a "hissy fit." However, he happened to have left out its middle - the part about openly posting the email addresses of reporters, which makes them subject to the harvesting of spambots. (I'd have added that open posting also presents competitive problems for the writers and publishers looking for sources, because it starts identifying which publications are looking at particular stories.) By leaving out that part, I think he badly and unfairly mischaracterized Shankman's reaction - and the reaction of the writers I know whose queries were posted.
Finally, Greer argues the following:
Unfortunately, I think that Jon Greet on Catching Flack didn't catch what was really going on. First, he seemed to take exception with Shankman's taking exception with the PR person taking the queries and putting them on a blog:
For starters, email is Internet content. It may not be de facto ok to republish it, but you can’t just tell people no. What’s to stop the offender from resubscribing via another email account and reposting the emails via an anonymous blog? Nothing, really. Or, what’s to stop a HARO subscriber from forwarding a HARO email to any number of their friends? Again, nothing.A variation on the argument could be made that just because it's illegal to rob a store, what's to stop someone? Because it is illegal - and immoral and unethical. Similar to Profnet emailing queries, the HARO emails are copyrighted compilations, and the individual queries are copyrighted by the reporters.
Under both international and US copyright law, as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, people do not have the right to take copyrighted material and post it on the web, absent a fair use argument. Posting something in its entirety on a commercial site as a way to attract traffic could be a textbook example of something that was not fair use. And the person whose copyright has been infringed has a number of legal remedies, just as the shop owner who has been robbed has.
In addition, Greer called the letter a "hissy fit." However, he happened to have left out its middle - the part about openly posting the email addresses of reporters, which makes them subject to the harvesting of spambots. (I'd have added that open posting also presents competitive problems for the writers and publishers looking for sources, because it starts identifying which publications are looking at particular stories.) By leaving out that part, I think he badly and unfairly mischaracterized Shankman's reaction - and the reaction of the writers I know whose queries were posted.
This post isn’t about ethics. I could argue both sides of the ethics debate. What its about is that the Internet is a super-powerful communications tool and you can’t take for granted that pre-Internet rules of engagement automatically apply. You have to anticipate how the power of the Internet may impact what you are doing or want to do, and adapt. You just can’t make assumptions.When you ridicule someone for objecting to a practice, you are talking about ethics in more ways than one. The issue in question was one of ethics, and by slanting the appearance of the letter, there's an entire other aspect of ethics that comes into play.
Finally, Greer argues the following:
So if Shankman wants to make HARO a strong and viable service that will survive, he’ll have to think through some of these implications and adapt or change the service. Otherwise, HARO is going to flame out, as journalists abandon it because they no longer find it to be an efficient and credible source of information.Quite the opposite. To embrace having everything posted openly would be the kiss of death. Many writers got leery of Profnet when someone started posting those queries, and I know a number that had a similar reaction when the HARO ones appeared. You might argue that the reporters are being unreasonable, but then why not extend that to everything private, and have all of our information, no matter what, posted? Because that would be nuts, and just because something is possible doesn't mean that you should tolerate it. And that's exactly the point here.
posted by Erik Sherman | 5:30 AM
5 Comments:
I really don't want to register to leave comments on the bNet blog, but someone left a comment that "Reporters Emails are everywhere, including on their own sites, so there is no spam issue there."
That is utter nonsense. There are many ways to code email addresses into websites so that they scramble when read by a spam bot. To assume that the reporter's emails being posted on a newspaper website and on some woman's blog are the same thing spam-wise is ludicrous.
I agree with your take on the whole thing Erik and think it was inappropriate for the bNet author to take the letter so out of context by removing a large part of it.
it seems a lot of people have their panties in a bunch over HARO, which I joined just a couple of weeks ago and have already used. It's unobtrusive, timely, and seems to be picking up steam. I, for one, hope it maintains its low-key persona for as long as possible.
One of the key tenets Shankman lays out in his rules and regs is fostering the exchange of relevant information only based on the queries at hand, and that's what will make HARO succeed. It seems he does indeed understand the difference between emails on a Web site and emails on a random blog - one welcomes relevant responses, the other welcomes all responses. The latter is exactly what all of us are trying to avoid.
First of all, the someone was me, the author of the post on BNET. I've never heard of technology that allows emails posted on web pages to be "scrambled." And in simple point of fact, they are up there for anyone to copy. So this issue of the sanctity of reporter emails strikes *me* as nonsense. They're business people, for god sakes, not demigods. Their emails are out there in the world. So let's set that red herring aside.
On the main point: Are you suggesting that the reporters who wrote emails to HARO considered them copyrighted, but that they were extending a fair use to HARO for republication, but that HARO was somehow NOT extending fair use to its subscriber list? And what exactly would constitute fair use by a subscriber? Emailing to 10 friends, emailing to 500 friends or emailing to 30,000 people you don't know? And what makes this particularly annoying is that Peter didn't set any conditions on the fair use or reuse of his material. He just wrote a vitriolic email after someone had crossed a line only he knew had been drawn.
And this is really the only point I was making. As I said on my blog, Peter has developed an interesting new service, but he did it in a simple and naive way and someone quickly exploited a loophole. So if he wants it to survive for the long-term, he's going to have to be smarter about how he constructs the service.
>> I've never heard of technology that allows emails posted on web pages to be "scrambled." And in simple point of fact, they are up there for anyone to copy. So this issue of the sanctity of reporter emails strikes *me* as nonsense.<<
Think of it as courtesy, not sanctity. many of us keep separate email addresses for such queries and we hope to keep the spam out. The "scrambling" can be as simple as "myname at domain dot com," or could be a graphic image of the address. Or a web form.
>> They're business people, for god sakes, not demigods. Their emails are out there in the world. So let's set that red herring aside. <<
It isn't a red herring, and I speak as one of the businesspeople. I've heard the same thing from many of the other businesspeople who do this for a living. So let's stop using rhetorical tags when they simply are not accurate. It would only be a red herring if it wasn't one of the problems. If a good number of writers perceive it as a problem, then it's a problem. Period.
>> On the main point: Are you suggesting that the reporters who wrote emails to HARO considered them copyrighted, but that they were extending a fair use to HARO for republication, but that HARO was somehow NOT extending fair use to its subscriber list? <<
I am suggesting that, like Profnet, these are copyrighted and that the reporters are providing permission (this isn't an issue of fair use) to distribute the information to the people signed up for the service. There is also a copyright interest in the collection as a compilation, and that copyright would rest with Shankman.
>> And what exactly would constitute fair use by a subscriber? Emailing to 10 friends, emailing to 500 friends or emailing to 30,000 people you don't know? <<
Personally, I don't mind someone forwarding a query of mine, but I don't want to see it on the Web. I'm also interested in qualified responses, not pitches from everyone and his brother who wants press on any old thing.
>> And what makes this particularly annoying is that Peter didn't set any conditions on the fair use or reuse of his material. <<
It is fair to say that a set of terms and conditions would be wise.
>> He just wrote a vitriolic email after someone had crossed a line only he knew had been drawn. <<
First, it may have been strongly worded, but it was hardly vitriolic. And an experienced PR person simply should have known better than to do that. It would have been fine for her to forward the listings to her clients if she thought they might be appropriate sources, but posting on the web? Any PR person I know who had been at the business for longer than a couple of years would have laughed at the concept.
>> And this is really the only point I was making. As I said on my blog, Peter has developed an interesting new service, but he did it in a simple and naive way and someone quickly exploited a loophole. <<
If something is copyrighted, then just because you get it doesn't mean that you can use it as you'd like. I'd say that there was no loophole. As done in all reasonably polite situation, it's easy to ask ahead of time.
P.R. pros who are not attuned to reporters' wants, needs and sensitivities will not be as effective.
Juli Cragg Hillirad
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