An open letter to Jason Calacanis
Posted June 1st, 2009 by benDear Jason Calacanis,
Stop stealing our users’ content. Your Q&A website, Mahalo Answers, is hijacking content from our Q&A site, Fluther.
We get it. You need to create doppelganger Twitter accounts to bolster your user base and create content. Perhaps some Twitter users are fine with the fact that their tweets are being co-opted by you to drive traffic. But we won’t allow you to strip out the attribution to our users simply to pad your own corpus of questions.
UPDATE 6.2.09:
Thank you for all for your responses.
As we continue to hone in on the issue, there has been a lot of discussion about “can you copyright a tweet” — albeit partly because we framed part of our argument that way.
For us though, that’s not the interesting issue — this issue is more about attribution.
Ultimately, we don’t care if questions on Fluther are reposted other places (we’re quite happy with the quality of responses here compared to other places). The central issue for us, though, is the fact that the attribution was stripped out to make it seem as if the content was being generated somewhere else. It’s less about copyright infringement and more about proper citation and plagiarism.
We know that content on Fluther is going to turn up other places — and we welcome that. But the only difference between plagiarism and sampling in a read/write culture is attribution — and that’s what was missing: a tiny twitter link does not attribution make.
We’re happy that Jason has responded to us (thank you). We look forward to Mahalo either attributing or removing the questions.
Meanwhile, we think we can do a better job with attribution in the tweetfeed and rss as well. We’ll be looking to change that in the coming days.
Andrew & Ben
—————–
Here’s one example (of quite a few):
Our question, asked by rexpresso, http://www.fluther.com/disc/45600/where-can-i-buy-mp3-that-can-be-used-for-commercial/ generated this tweet to our Twitter account. Our twitterfeed posts a tweet for every single question, including a link back to our site (just like RSS), as is required by our Terms of Service.
Now, look at: http://www.mahalo.com/answers/music/where-can-i-buy-mp3-that-can-be-used-for-commercial-purposes. You are making an exact copy of this question, categorizing it in your system, stripping out the attribution link (as required by our terms) and hosting in on Mahalo Answers.
In your response to our cease and desist email, you say “our users can answer questions from the public timeline on Twitter…” [1]
That’s fine. Your users can answer our questions. But that’s entirely different than you repurposing our tweet on your site and stripping out the links to the original question in order to make it seem like one of your users asked it.
You also say “we don’t feel you can copyright a publicly asked question.” [1] To this, we respond with the Twitter Terms of Service:
1. We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Twitter service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours.
That means that all those tweets posted by us are, in fact, copyrighted by us and may not be repackaged and hosted by you against our will. Why not just scrape Fluther.com directly for question titles and ask them on your site under an assumed name? (Hint: don’t do that, either)
We know many Web 2.0 companies wrestle with murky legal waters, and we’re all doing our best by using good judgment, intuition and honor.
Except you.
This is not a murky case. This is not like hosting a link to an illegal bittorrent, which may require some legal nuance. This is one company publicly infringing upon the rights of another company and their users, and we find it appalling that you’re standing behind this deplorable practice.
So please, put an end to this.
Ben Finkel & Andrew McClain
Fluther.com Co-Founders
For a full list of lifted content, see http://www.mahalo.com/member/fluther
[1] Letter from Jason Calacanis
From: Jason McCabe Calacanis
Date: Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:35 PM
Subject: Re: Stop hijacking our content
To: Ben Finkel
Thanks for the email.
We don’t autoscrape questions, but our users can answer questions from the public timeline on Twitter… those publicly asked questions can be answered by anyone, anywhere at any time based on fair use (ie including on twitter or a person’s blog).
In other words, we don’t feel you can copyright a publicly asked questions.
However, I respect your right to disagree with my position.
All the Best, jason
—————
XXXXXX@Calacanis.com | Mobile: XXX-XXX-XXXX
http://www.calacanis.com | http://www.mahalo.com
Executive Assistant: XXXX@calacanis.com
From: Ben Finkel
Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 14:34:31 -0700
To:
Subject: Stop hijacking our content
Dear Mr. Calacanis,
I’m writing this letter to inform you that your Q&A website, Maholo Answers, is hijacking content from our Q&A website, Fluther.com. Apparently you’re scraping content from Twitter, including our questions, and reposting them as yours without attribution or links back to our website (a clear breech of our terms of service).
Please delete all content associated with the user “fluther” and cease and desist this practice immediately.
Ben Finkel
Fluther.com Co-Founder & CEO
–
Tap the collective.
http://www.fluther.com
June 1st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I can’t believe someone would be this lazy. That is blatant misuse of the internet and anyone that has the nerve to argue against that fact deserves any legal ramifications that come upon them. Good luck, gentlemen.
June 1st, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Go get em!
June 1st, 2009 at 5:19 pm
I am sorry to say that I find this behavior outrageous. As long as this will continue, I will very proactively advise everyone I know not to use Mahalo anymore.
Quite frankly, I don’t care about the legal situation, my questions aren’t public, but directed at a community I know and trust. I take strong exception with a provider recycling these materials to pad their own venue.
I’m sorry to say, but this is unacceptable. I will support Fluther in any way possible in their endeavor to end this questionable practice, if necessary as witness in court or even co-plaintiff.
Mahalo Jason, your bookmark just dropped out of my favorites…
June 1st, 2009 at 5:26 pm
this is ridiculous. i’m very tempted to ask a “Why does Mahalo suck?” question, though i know i shouldn’t (in theory). Interesting to see what would happen.
johnpowell - do you feel a dick punch coming on?
June 1st, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Wow, that’s awful. Thanks for fighting for us, Ben and Andrew. <3
June 1st, 2009 at 5:52 pm
@eponymoushipster, lol4rl
June 1st, 2009 at 5:52 pm
I am more than happy to offer my services as a trolly douche if you so require them. I would be more than happy to go after anyone that is fucking with Fluther. You guys have a great site here.
June 1st, 2009 at 5:57 pm
@blondesjon you’re my favorite trolly douche.
oddly enough, too, “Trolly Douche” is a brand name in Holland.
June 1st, 2009 at 6:05 pm
While I agree that copying tweets wholesale to populate a site is obnoxious, there is some question about whether this would actually be copyright infringement:
http://www.canyoucopyrightatweet.com/
June 1st, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Guys,
Here’s what you do…
Go complain to Google and ask them to remove all of these questions from Google’s index since you own the copyright to them. Send Google a cease & desist notice and tell them that this is duplicate and stolen content. Google will have to remove Mahalo’s pages that they stole from Google’s index.
Once they’re out of index, it’s as if they don’t exist.
Also, complain that Mahalo is PROFITING from your content and Google’s aiding them by giving them Adsense revenue from YOUR questions! That will make Google take action even faster since they will be on the legal hook for any losses that you suffer!
Do some googling on how to send Cease & Desist and google more on “duplicate content” issues. Here’s one link to get you started:
http://www.google.com/dmca.html
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-penalties
Best of luck and tell those mahalo PARASITES to FU*K OFF!
Dave
PS: I’ve been fighting various content scraping sites for a while and I’ve been VERY successful at it. My actions have personally shut down about 7 spammers so far and I’ve used these methods.
PPS: Also, find out who’s hosting Mahalo by going here : http://www.whoishostingthis.com/ and send their ISP also a Cease & Desist notice! That should also give them something to think about since now their ISP is also an accomplice in theft!
June 1st, 2009 at 6:15 pm
One more thing: Is Fluther trademarked? I notice that mahalo uses your name as the name of their spam bot. Well, issue a legal threat to them for using your TRADEMARKED name as well!
June 1st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
For real. Aside from the legal aspect, where’s the self respect? Sure, you can copy someone else’s essay for English class and possibly get away with it for a while, but you sure as hell won’t be deserving of the grade. Ben and Andrew are good students, and I can’t have any respect for someone who cheats off of hard workers.
June 1st, 2009 at 6:22 pm
We’ll take down the account for you if it’s such a big deal. It’s like a half dozen questions that were imported by our user.
Just so you know we’re not importing every question from your site or anything… we’re let our users import questions from the public timeline and answer them. We think this is clever and fun….. I posted to twitter and these dudes answersed it–cool!
However, in your case I guess you think it’s going to make some huge difference to either of our sites. It won’t…. really. A half dozen questions out of 100k+ on Mahalo Answers and I’m sure thousands on your site don’t make a difference.
Also, frankly, I don’t think you can copyright a question asked in a public forum like Twitter… but who really cares. we’ll take it down and respectfully disagree and buy you a beer when we see you.
rock on, jcal
June 1st, 2009 at 6:23 pm
What big jerks! Thank-you for defending this site: Andrew and Ben : )
June 1st, 2009 at 6:23 pm
You might have a legit complaint if they were scraping your answers, but questions are fair game. How about you concentrate on providing the best answers? That’s how competition works.
June 1st, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Heh.. the mighty Jason has caved in! Your whole company is a dog, Jason, and you know it. Mahalo is the parasite of the web.
And you guys are worth >$60M hahaha! Right.
Nothing more than adsense keyword spammers.
June 1st, 2009 at 6:38 pm
[…] The Fluther Blog » Blog Archive » An open letter to Jason Calacanis. […]
June 1st, 2009 at 6:39 pm
[…] to start the week with the fine folks over at Fluther.com, a web question and answer site, have posted a public letter to Jason Calacanis the high flying owner of Mahalo, another Q&A site, on their blog telling him to stop stealing […]
June 1st, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Thanks, Jason. We appreciate it. If you want, keep up the account, but just don’t strip the links.
June 1st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
J-Cal doesn’t seem to be doing the right thing but wait….Fluther is claiming it owns the copyright to all *its* users who upload questions to its site? Huh? That’s not very progressive, and that’s not what Twitter means. Twitter means I, who post the Tweet, own that tweet.
One scraper of Twitter banging on another, looks like.
June 1st, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Why would anyone want to “own” a question? I thought the purpose of a question was to get an answer. If I have a question, and I get a suitable answer, I don’t care who it comes from. In fact, how could you call it intellectual property? It seems more like a want ad for someone else’s intellectual property.
June 1st, 2009 at 7:19 pm
roar mighty lions of justice, roar
June 1st, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Wow, a dispute discussed, mediated and resolved online. No pain and no lawyers involved. This brings hope for the web and the future of communication between people.
June 1st, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Jason Calacanis a douchebag? What a surprise!
But he’s FAMOUS.
June 1st, 2009 at 7:48 pm
A few of my best friends are intellectual property attorneys.
June 1st, 2009 at 7:49 pm
PS not the first time Mahalo has had issues with stealing content….
June 1st, 2009 at 7:51 pm
lolbanned !
June 1st, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Jason’s having a meltdown on Twitter about this. He’s hugging it out.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Jason, the issue is not whether or not the couple questions “make a difference” in traffic to either site. That’s a sad answer, but one I would expect from you. It’s not about business, It’s about doing the right thing and having ethics. If executives like you started using more common sense and actually cared about what is right, as opposed to who is right, then we would have more clarity in business. Whenever you put your business, traffic, revenue, marketing, promotion, brand etc….. before ethics, you will lose. Maybe not in business, but in life. You can’t touch pitch and not get defiled.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Whoa, quite the conflict over IP, although it seems that Jason (in the comments) has agreed to take down the offending questions. Looks like the open letter tactic was a big success.
I’m sure even Jason would agree that having Mahalo repost answers from Fluther (without attribution) would be unacceptable. From a copyright perspective, resposting questions doesn’t seem to be any different.
Ultimately, I think this points to a problem with Twitter. Importing content from Twitter’s public timeline is potentially useful feature for many hypothetical websites. As you point out, Twitter claims no copyright over that comment, so it’d be nice if that content had some sort of clear CC license by default, which services like Fluther would be free to alter.
I wonder if there are other public examples of a Twitter user asserting their copyright and then being challenged.
June 1st, 2009 at 9:25 pm
You should be explicit with the correct copyright notice whether Fluther user’s content is Creative Content or not. User generated content belongs to the user! User care about their data much more than they care about the service or platform hosting their data! All they want is the ability to share/export/embed/re-purpose their data for their benefits.
That said, I don’t think you own the copyright to the content provided by your users, at most you only have make it available through your site.
One last point, book and article titles are not copyrightable. Your questions can be posted in any question/answer site available.
Overall, I feel Jason has a stronger case but I would love to see how this plays out in a court of law. Instead of baiting attention for your site, you should get a lawyer…
June 1st, 2009 at 9:36 pm
It’s not copyright infringement. Its plagarism. Illegal nonetheless especially as it goes against clearly written terms of service. They should stop. You do have a case here. Truth wins!
June 1st, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Ben, this post is in poor form. A business disagreement is a business disagreement. Rousing pubic favor because you fit the underdog mold is opportunistic at best.
Even if you do have valid points,
Calling a man’s ethics into question publically negates your arguement and your own ethics absolutely. I too have had serious issues with Jason and I can tell you, he is a man of utmost moral fiber under pressure. You are walking into libel - slander terrain.
June 1st, 2009 at 9:55 pm
I had a comment all ready to submit a few hours ago, then my DSL gave out, and I lost the comment into the ether… however, after reading more from this thread, and the one over at Hacker News I have to say that this entire thing is a load of crap. I know Jason already said that they would remove the ‘offending’ twitter bot, but honestly, Mahalo is in the right on this one.
I don’t use Mahalo or Fluther, and honestly, I highly doubt that I’ll give Fluther a try after this.
Basically, your argument is that a user asks a question on Fluther, which is then cross-posted to your Twitter account. Mahalo then takes that question from Twitter and posts it on their site. It should be noted that Mahalo’s page (the one you linked to) very clearly states where they got the question from (via twitter, with a link to your tweet).
Sure, they remove the tinyurl link at the end. But, it’s not like the link has ‘fluther.com’ in it. How would a user seeing the tinyurl link know that goes to Fluther?
What did you expect to happen when you posted the question to Twitter? Once it is posted there, your TOS have no standing… only the Twitter TOS.
So, with that, I have two questions…
One, how is this any different from a blog post getting posted to Digg/Reddit/HN? It usually isn’t the author that submits a post to a social news site. So, a third party posts the title and a snippet of the post to a social news site. That site then accumulates comments about the post, instead of the author’s site. Somewhat similar to how this post has accumulated comments both here and at hacker news.
Two, are you honestly suggesting that a tweet is copyrightable? There are only so many ways to ask a question, especially in 140 characters (less if you include the tinyurl link). So it is highly unlikely that a tweet could be copyrighted (as mentioned above). Even if it could, the IP would reside with the person who submitted it to Fluther. Now, if they know that the question is going to be cross-posted to Twitter, you could argue that the user expects that other people will see the question and post it other places.
So, as I see it, Mahalo is mining the public Twitter feed for questions. It adds the question to their site, with a link-back to the source Tweet. They aren’t scraping your site for the answers. You are the ones posting the question to Twitter. If you don’t want them (or anyone) pulling questions from your twitter feed, don’t post things to Twitter.
June 1st, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Ben Finkel & Andrew McClain,
It seems that it was a user of Mahalo, not Mahalo itself that “stole” your content. How is this any different then a user of Youtube uploading a video that is pirated. Jason offered to take down the offending user, just like YouTube would take down a user if directed to. I really doubt Jason would actively scrap another site through Twitter or otherwise, as its a high risk activity with little to no gain. Its a lot easier and productive to focus on activities that gain users. Stop attacking competitors senselessly and try to work in a more constructive manner in the future.
Regards,
Ben
June 1st, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Did you try a plain old email first, before publishing this open letter? Just curious what you tried.
I’d agree that plagiarists are scum, but you should be sure it’s not just a misunderstanding before you start accusing people of such vile behavior.
June 1st, 2009 at 10:19 pm
[…] power of blogging to solve simple business problems or Mahalo vs. Fluther: http://is.gd/LZArAnother great Twitter tool: http://www.happn.in/ Let’s you find out what is hot on Twitter in […]
June 1st, 2009 at 10:22 pm
This is not the first time Jason has been accused of stealing anything either. In fact he has told this to people who were pitching him on investing in their business, that he would just do the idea himself rather then investing in their business. This is Jason’s established M.O. and it is well known within tech circles though few people are brave enough to call him out on it. Time for the truth to be told.
June 1st, 2009 at 10:25 pm
[…] startup Fluther is not happy with Jason Calacanis – Supposedly because Calacanis’ site Mahalo has been reposting questions from Fluther without attribution. Prime […]
June 1st, 2009 at 10:26 pm
This is all just one big pile of pathetic nonsense. It appears as if this issue has been resolved. For your own sakes, please stop making even bigger fools of yourselves.
(This is not directed at either side in particular)
June 1st, 2009 at 10:27 pm
[…] startup Fluther is not happy with Jason Calacanis – Supposedly because Calacanis’ site Mahalo has been reposting questions from Fluther without attribution. Prime […]
June 1st, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Umm…
I think both Mahalo and Fluther are wrong here (or Jason and Ben as the case may be).
The question mentioned above “Where can I buy MP3 that can be used for commercial purposes?” is copyright by rexpresso. Not by fluther.
Consider http://www.fluther.com/disc/46204/does-fluther-own-our-questions/ in which mtl_Jack asks the pertinant question.
Twitter does not own my tweets. Nor does Fluther own my fluthers. They do claim that in their TOS that “Any content posted on this site may be used by Fluther for any purpose.” But that is NOT the same as owning it. In particular, they do not gain copyright over the content written by their users. They have an unlimited license to do whatever they want with it, but they do not have a right to prevent others, such as Mahalo from using it.
That said, Mahalo should definitely attribute the source of questions it picks up like this. Not only is it a no-brainer from a copyright standpoint, it gives props to the questioner and in return generates appreciation and respect for Mahalo. Just snagging the tweets or fluthers without attributions is both a bit slimy and arguably a dicey case of fair use… very arguable. But it is arguable that posting it to a quasi-public forum such as Twitter, in the /public/ timeline, makes it fair game for services like Mahalo. (But I still think attribution is the right way to handle it.)
IANAL, YMMV,
-j
June 1st, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I would like to protect the integrity of Fluther. Should I report evertime I see an exact duplicate of a question here on another site to you?
June 1st, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Everybody knows calacanis is a moron… way to go.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:00 pm
[…] Foundation. Question-and-answer startup Fluther is not happy with Jason Calacanis – Supposedly because Calacanis’ site Mahalo has been reposting questions from Fluther without attribution. Prime […]
June 1st, 2009 at 11:01 pm
What blatant plagiarism! Has this man no conscience? He has no right to my answers or work, because it is not in the Fluther Terms of Service that all my posts will be lifted by Calacanis. I joined Fluther, not Mahalo, and therefore my posts cannot be taken by anyone without the consent of myself or Fluther. Good work guys, I hope you bring him down.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:08 pm
ROWR. Thanks for standing up for us, guys! It should be noted that Ben did email Jason first, and Jason basically said ‘tough luck’. Only after that was the issue made public.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:28 pm
What a lamer! Go get that guy. Could he be anymore unoriginal?
June 1st, 2009 at 11:29 pm
[…] Read the full article […]
June 1st, 2009 at 11:49 pm
[…] shrinking runway. In their place you’ll find user-generated content and creative ways to scrape and re-purpose data. Is there better living through aggregation in Mahalo’s future? Tune in tomorrow to find […]
June 1st, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Interesting… very interesting…
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:36 am
Yay for the win.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:40 am
Joe Andrieu> You are also wrong, because a question can’t be copyrighted.
I think Mahalo did nothing wrong. They just took question from public twitter feed and republished it. Read -> http://www.canyoucopyrightatweet.com/
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:49 am
“You also say “we don’t feel you can copyright a publicly asked question.” [1] To this, we respond with the Twitter Terms of Service:
1. We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Twitter service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours.
That means that all those tweets posted by us are, in fact, copyrighted by us and may not be repackaged and hosted by you against our will.”
Argumentum ad ignorantiam.
If I could copyright stupid, you’d all be infringing right about now. Do you honestly think that you can copyright questions made to acquire what is considered common knowledge? Good thing you guys run a website and not a law firm.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:49 am
This is somewhat ironic (or hypocritical maybe?), considering Calacanis previous crusade against SEO and anyone who uses it or provides it..
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:28 am
@Sirius:
the problem seems to me is that questions are copied en-masse. You probably can’t claim copyright a single question, but when they are copied in big numbers - that’s clearly infringement. Following your logic - you can’t copyright a word, so copying a text or a book from somebody is not a legal problem - it’s just lots of uncopyrightable words.
@ben (author):
I’ve updated my article in the link (Future Internet is rip off, black hat) with the part of Jason’s reply, as it couldn’t illustrate one of my points better (anything stolen could be blamed on users).
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:57 am
I am very curious to see what Calcanis eventually does about this very very public fall out. He tends to thrive and indeed seek controversy. However when people like Arron Wall are calling you out on Twitter, maybe something fundamental has to change for Mahalo
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:27 am
Questions and Answers reposted on another site without permission.
This is not something new and its not the last time it will happen.
Obviously this is bad craic from the guy ripping the content off. But is this not the case with the majority of the internet? It really bores me when people post 7 tips to do this or 10 ways to beat the credit crunch or 16 ways to increase SEO. Or 3 simple ways to lose weight. And all is ripped from another site and claimed as their own. It all bores me and its so irrelevant. Original free thinking contents is few and far between these days with so many twitter bots and blogs reposting old content. Its just pure wall paper if you ask. If someone asks a question and some other site reposts well sure they shouldnt have done it but hey its widespread across the net and nearly possible to regulate. Im increasingly going old school reading books again - there is something more pure about printed literature. I have plans to abandon the net and live in a hut, go for long walks in the sun, have interesting conversations, maybe fish a little and connect more with the real world. Questions and Answer websites - So Fkg what. Live a little guys. This is all irrelevant and unimportant. when you see a new born baby smile or some great architecture in Rome or fall in love or run a marathon you will see the internet is only a tool. Dont take it too seriously. I own a web company by the way.(ironic i know) Take care blogspots.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:56 am
I just requested my Mahalo.com accounts be deleted this morning..
JOIN THE MAHALO.COM BOYCOTT
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:03 am
What’s a fluther? And does anyone really use either service?
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:13 am
Well crap. Now I can’t even say “Mahalo!” to my Hawai’ian buds without getting a bad taste in my mouth. Thanks a frickin’ lot, Jason Craptaculous!
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:23 am
@Sirius
Just because the Twitter TOS doesn’t assert a claim to intellectual property in a message means that intellectual exists.
@Slava
The number of items copied doesn’t matter. It’s the _order_ of the items. So, you can’t copyright the addresses in the phone book (it’s a fact), you can copyright the order that they are in. I could make a copy of each address in the alphabetically sorted phone book, put them in numerical order by phone number, publish it, and be in the clear.
Since the questions were taken from a public feed and added to another database (containing other information as well), I doubt you could even make a claim of copyright in this instance.
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:24 am
All:
Thank you for all for your responses.
As we continue to hone in on the issue, there has been a lot of discussion about “can you copyright a tweet” — albeit partly because we framed part of our argument that way.
For us though, that’s not the interesting issue — this issue is more about attribution.
Ultimately, we don’t care if questions on Fluther are reposted other places (we’re quite happy with the quality of responses here compared to other places). The central issue for us, though, is the fact that the attribution was stripped out to make it seem as if the content was being generated somewhere else. It’s less about copyright infringement and more about proper citation and plagiarism.
We know that content on Fluther is going to turn up other places — and we welcome that. But the only difference between plagiarism and sampling in a read/write culture is attribution — and that’s what was missing: a tiny twitter link does not attribution make.
We look forward to Mahalo either attributing or removing the questions.
Meanwhile, I think _we_ can do a better with attribution in the tweetfeed and rss as well. We’ll be looking to change that in the coming days.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:48 am
So now Jason has not only created a huge SEO directory after mocking SEOs, but he is scraping content, repurposing it and getting a pass from Google - blackhats around the world would be proud.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:09 pm
[…] (SEO) juice that has helped Mahalo grow in the GoogleGoogle reviews rankings. Yet there has been controversy with Mahalo pulling questions from Twitter for its Mahalo Answers program, and it’s possible […]
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
[…] optimization (SEO) juice that has helped Mahalo grow in the Google rankings. Yet there has been controversy with Mahalo pulling questions from Twitter for its Mahalo Answers program, and it’s possible […]
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:36 pm
[…] optimization (SEO) juice that has helped Mahalo grow in the Google rankings. Yet there has been controversy with Mahalo pulling questions from Twitter for its Mahalo Answers program, and it’s possible […]
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:48 am
Mahalo boycott? I never heard of them until today. Rock on Ben and Andrew!
June 4th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Jason, it seems to me that Fluther isn’t trying to claim rights to user questions, but maintain the rights to the users themselves. It doesn’t seem like you’re getting it. It’s cheap, regardless of how little it “hurts” any party. It only makes you look like a tard and the original asker look unoriginal.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Thanks for keeping us up-to-date, Ben and Andrew!
June 4th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Wow. That’s some juvenile bullshit on Mahalo’s part.
June 5th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Jason C sez:
“However, in your case I guess you think it’s going to make some huge difference to either of our sites. It won’t…. really. A half dozen questions out of 100k+ on Mahalo Answers and I’m sure thousands on your site don’t make a difference. ”
Great argument Jason, so I guess you wouldn’t mind if I walked into your house and took a couple dollars out of your bedroom dresser, because hey, you’re rich anyway, right?
June 25th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
This is no longer a problem just on Fluther. I am just a normal Twitter user. One day, out of the blue, I started getting @replies from a user called “Answers.” I looked at the links, and sure enough, they’d taken a question I’d asked and posted it to their site. When I sent a second question, essentially asking what the deal was, someone answered by saying that I shouldn’t have tweeted to @answers if I didn’t want my question on Mahalo. I NEVER directed my question toward @answers. Mahalo seems to be just scraping straight off of Twitter. (Mahalo has since deleted “my” posts from their site.)
I’m really glad you posted this. I agree, a little attribution would have been nice.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:47 am
Сегодня нашел нужную информацию на вашем блоге и очень обрадовался. Не понимаю, как я его раньше не заметил
June 29th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Спасибо, пост действительно толково написан и по делу, есть что почерпнуть.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:31 am
предидущие части были лучше))))
July 17th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Looks like Mahalo’s pulling search result images from Google without giving any kind of attribution! Naughty Mahalo. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
July 19th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
хотела бы с вами поообщаться поближе, есть ровня вопросов по оформлению и обмену ссылками, дозволено вообще поработать
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:54 pm
списки кандидатов, выдвигаемые партиями политическими и избирательными объединениями (блоками) для выборах в представительные органы, проводимые по пропорциональной избирательной системе.
July 26th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Узнай об имени правду ! Любые имена есть на этом сайте!!
October 21st, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Занятно пишете, жизненно. Все-таки, для того, чтобы делать по-настоящему интересный блог, нужно не только сообщать о чем-то, но и делать это в интересной форме:)
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:47 am
Очень понравился ваш сайт, спасибо. Удачи.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:17 am
Процеветания сайтику Вашему и большой респект бесспорно
October 26th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Нелегко найти много нормальной информации по этой теме
October 26th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Я точно где то это уже видел…
October 27th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Я тоже хочу что-нибудь эдакое умное написать!
October 27th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Завтра вернусь сюда чтобы дочитать
October 28th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Отличный материал, всё было разложено по полочкам