New Policy on Posting Stuff from Other Sites

[batmagadanleadoff]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: ...and anyone could have predicted it'd raise the suspicions of BatMags who in my opinion, likely sees this as the Anti BatMags Act of 2016.

As if there could be any doubt. Boy, you're really on to me. Oh, by the way, do I have permission to use part of your post in my post? Because if not, and it turns out that it isn't fair use, I'll delete your quote from this post.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Megdals not exactly out there burning the shoe leather himself - he's a hustler alright, but nearly all the facts, quotes and figures he assembles were initially gathered by others in a different context.

I dunno. I truly believe that Megdal's developed his own confidential sources within the Mets world, probably during the period when the Mets were shopping shares of the team and were thus, exposing their financials to lotsa new eyeballs. And also, I'm guessing that there must be a heckuva lotta disgruntled employees in that organization --- it's usually like that when an org is faced with difficult finances -- and that Megdal's pieces resonate with them to the point that maybe, at least one of 'em has reached out to Megdal deep throat style.

[fimg=333]http://41.media.tumblr.com/025454ac565cae4429b3c1aac7e60401/tumblr_nbppxm8juJ1qkdy8to1_1280.jpg[/fimg]

[nymr83]

We really shouldn't post whole articles here primarily because they often interfere with or supercede conversation...

this was my major point in bringing it up, though the copyright fair/use concerns are there too.

[Frayed Knot]

I don't even look at this as 'new' policy. Not that it was ever chiseled on a stone tablet into the forum bylaws or anything but not reprinting outside material in whole was generally considered to be the way to do things around here and I think we've just gotten lazy over the years of sticking to that habit and/or reminding others to do the same.
Also, like I said earlier, I think it's boring and lazy to boot and I tend not to read those kind of posts particularly when the originator doesn't at least make an attempt at stating his purpose.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

I believe the new Policy proposed by Kong seems rerasonable. It shouldn't be difficult for anyone to comply with with a minimal amount of effort. The original authors deserve to be creidted for their original work. It is not a major problem to click through to the original article if you wish to read more than the excerpt included in a post.

[MFS62]

I rarely copy and post an article in its entirety. (Not never, but rarely). Since I usually just post the link, with my own comments, this seems ok to me.

Later

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Frayed Knot wrote: Also, like I said earlier, I think it's boring and lazy to boot and I tend not to read those kind of posts particularly when the originator doesn't at least make an attempt at stating his purpose.

Right? If I'm looking to start a conversation about an article/story/TV show IRL, I might mention pertinent parts and a source, but I'd certainly offer some reason why it was novel or interesting, or why I found it so. It's essential to conversation, innit?

Between that and the waft of fair use/IP matters, how is this even an issue (much less a platform where you'd stand on principle)?

[Centerfield]

Especially in light of the fact that doing so might cost the author money.

Look, the admins can decide the extent to which they want to police this, but for me, if I see an article posted, I'll probably just give it a few clicks for good measure.

I waste so much time on the internet anyway. Might as well help some Met-writers make a few bucks.

[batmagadanleadoff]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: how is this even an issue (much less a platform where you'd stand on principle)?

It's not an issue with me, though it would appear to be. I've got no problem respecting someone else's copyright. But I'll tell you this though, even though I can't prove what I'm about to write, but I'll write it anyways 'cause it's what I truly believe. I could easily name more than a dozen posters on this forum, that if it was them posting articles in whole, this conversation would've never ever ever, (did I say ever?) EVER have happened. You can deny it and claim that it's all about fair use and have the fair use angels on your side and fair use is fair I suppose, even it protects stuff that's about 100 years old, but that's what I'm believing.

[Guest d'Kong76]

With my hand on a stack of Mets yearbooks this thread was not
started with any particular poster in mind. I see the coincidence,
and I apologize if anyone feels I'm singling anyone out. That's
simply not the case. Really, I was a lazy poster of links and con-
tent in the past and posting stuff without adding my own thought
to things and I intend to not do that in 2016. Hopefully, the rest
of us will follow suit.

[Centerfield]

For what it's worth, KC is firmly in the "Wilpons Suck!" camp.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: At my previous place of employment, when we switched to a digital-first format, we were assigned monthly page view quotas and our bonuses were tied to meeting our goals. And for the site overall, advertising rates were based on the site's total page views, just like it used to be based on circulation. So as an author, I'd get upset when people cut-and-pasted my stories into blogs and forums and things. It was affecting my paycheck. I needed the clicks, even if it was just five or 10 or 30 people, it got me that much closer to the monthly quota. And the legal folks were quick to pounce when, say, a local television station would do that to one of our stories, since they were hurting our bottom line in addition to taking our work. Again, will someone from ESPN come after the 'Pool? Probably not. But I totally get why it's bad to cut and paste entire articles.

One could make the same case for not posting youtube song videos. First of all, they're copyrighted. And one could easily argue that posting them cuts into the record sales of the songs in question.

[nymr83]

youtube song videos do in fact get taken down regularly for copyright reasons, there seems to be a trend now to post the official music videos supported by ads though. kinda like how a newspaper article on the internet has ads paying for it and nobody sees those ads when you copy the entire article.

[A Boy Named Seo]

YouTube actually pays out performance and mechanical royalties to songwriters, so a click here is the same as a click there. 'Click' being the key activity.

I can remember posting an entire article before in the interest of it being around forever in case the url ever changed or disappeared. I'll make sure I knock that shit off, this practice is a good one.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Nymr83 wrote: youtube song videos do in fact get taken down regularly for copyright reasons,

Because they're copyrighted. Just because a song video is on youtube, doesn't mean that there's no copyright violation going on. I'm just sayin'. It doesn't bother me that youtube vids get posted here. But this new policy here isn't being applied evenly. Look, the internet has changed life so profoundly, and in ways that no one could have anticipated, that as far as these blog and forum postings go, the copyright holders have essentially thrown in the towel, conceding that it's futile and cost-inefficient to try and enforce their copyrights. So they don't. Or they pick and choose, singling out egregious violators. Recognizing also, that blog and forum use of their works is probably harmless and might even benefit them in other ways. This is much ado about nothing. And yeah, I'm not saying that I was singled out, or that someone premeditated this whole clusterfuck just to stick it to me. But if it was someone else posting long articles, and the articles weren't occasionally unpopular or critical ones, this thought never leaves the idea stage. And never gets legs. Youse woulda thought of it, and then thought: "Well I like that poster, I don't wanna mess with what he does, so I'll just keep the thought to myself. Instead, you get a thread that morphs into I'm putting a gun to your heads to force youse to read lengthy pieces that you have no interest in reading.

[batmagadanleadoff]

A Boy Named Seo wrote: YouTube actually pays out performance and mechanical royalties to songwriters, so a click here is the same as a click there. 'Click' being the key activity. I can remember posting an entire article before in the interest of it being around forever in case the url ever changed or disappeared. I'll make sure I knock that shit off, this practice is a good one.

I don't see how youtube gets a click when the video is posted here. I don't see how the rights holders are compensated when someone takes a youtube vid and converts the audio to mp3 for downloading onto his or her computer.

[Guest d'Kong76]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: But this new policy here isn't being applied evenly.

You've made your point and succeeded in busting my balls. Again.
There's no policy, do whatever the fuck you want you petulant pain
in the fucking tuchus.

[batmagadanleadoff]

d'Kong76 wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: But this new policy here isn't being applied evenly. You've made your point and succeeded in busting my balls. Again. There's no policy, do whatever the fuck you want you petulant pain in the fucking tuchus.

I don't know why you're taking this exchange so personally. Or why you think I'm busting your balls. I'm not. I'm not even aware that you have a major part in this. You're not even on my radar in this discussion. And when you wrote that you swore that you weren't thinking to stick it to me, I truly believed you. And I still do. All I said was that if it was another poster, it doesn't get mentioned. There's a difference. And why do you say "petulant pain in the fucking tuchus" instead of "petulant asshole"? . That's what DWG once called me during one of our old fights. He stepped in to take your side on that one. I wonder where DWG was all those years when you couldn't go half a week without tormenting me? How come he never called you a petulant asshole? See what I mean?

Edited January 6, 2016 by Guest

[nymr83]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: youtube song videos do in fact get taken down regularly for copyright reasons, Because they're copyrighted. Just because a song video is on youtube, doesn't mean that there's no copyright violation going on. I'm just sayin'. It doesn't bother me that youtube vids get posted here. But this new policy here isn't being applied evenly. Look, the internet has changed life so profoundly, and in ways that no one could have anticipated, that as far as these blog and forum postings go, the copyright holders have essentially thrown in the towel, conceding that it's futile and cost-inefficient to try and enforce their copyrights. So they don't. Or they pick and choose, singling out egregious violators. Recognizing also, that blog and forum use of their works is probably harmless and might even benefit them in other ways. This is much ado about nothing. And yeah, I'm not saying that I was singled out, or that someone premeditated this whole clusterfuck just to stick it to me. But if it was someone else posting long articles, and the articles weren't occasionally unpopular or critical ones, this thought never leaves the idea stage. And never gets legs. Youse woulda thought of it, and then thought: "Well I like that poster, I don't wanna mess with what he does, so I'll just keep the thought to myself. Instead, you get a thread that morphs into I'm putting a gun to your heads to force youse to read lengthy pieces that you have no interest in reading.

i mistook your initial post as referring to music being posted to youtube, not music on youtube being posted to the forums.

[A Boy Named Seo]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: A Boy Named Seo wrote: YouTube actually pays out performance and mechanical royalties to songwriters, so a click here is the same as a click there. 'Click' being the key activity. I can remember posting an entire article before in the interest of it being around forever in case the url ever changed or disappeared. I'll make sure I knock that shit off, this practice is a good one. I don't see how youtube gets a click when the video is posted here. I don't see how the rights holders are compensated when someone takes a youtube vid and converts the audio to mp3 for downloading onto his or her computer.

When we embed a video here, all the links and metadata from Youtube are unchanged. They still know what's being played and can compensate if an arrangement's in place.

If someone takes a YT vid and rips it to an MP3, then I imagine that would count as one click when the theft begins and after that, it's just a stolen mp3.

Obv, not every piece of copyrighted intellectual property is legit on Youtube, but they have struck deals to compensate artists as a streaming service, similar to Apple Music, Spotify, whatever.

[Guest d'Kong76]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Why do you think I'm busting your balls? I'm not. I'm not even aware that you have a major part in this.

Good. I'm having enough admin headaches right now.
Major part? I started this thread. White outing half the butterball picture
isn't ball busting? C'mon. Please, let's just be friends after all these years....

[batmagadanleadoff]

d'Kong76 wrote: Why do you think I'm busting your balls? I'm not. I'm not even aware that you have a major part in this. White outing half the butterball picture isn't ball busting? C'mon.

No. It's not ball busting. Anybody else writes those new Butterball posts gets three high fives, two lols and a bullet of cool. Me, I'm a petulant asshole.

d'Kong76 wrote: C'mon. Please, let's just be friends after all these years....

I can definitely get on board with this one. It'd be a pleasure.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Thanks! So, how 'bout those Wilpon's....

[Guest cooby classic]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: it's not a copyright violation. I'm not stealing anything. I'm reading it in a forum. What if you printed it out and handed it to me? nope, not a violation. Unless you have permission from the copyright holder, you can't republish their work. Printing it out is not republishing it. What if was broadcast on my TV and I recorded it and showed it to all of you in my home? nope, not a violation. TV has a special dispensation; you are allowed to make a home recording for home use (but not for public performance). That doesn't apply to written text. My thoughts here are primarily about the news/beat type articles which are more amenable to fair use anyway. There's not clearcut rule, but fair use only allows you to use portions of a work, not its entirety. I have a hard time calling an Adam Rubin post about the '86 celebrations on Memorial Day with a few mentions about what they did in '06 as 'content' except in the strictest sense. There's not a lot of artistic work going on in a news report. Doesn't matter. It's protected by copyright. I understand that it gets murkier as it's further editorialized, but as all we're doing is furthering the discussion of a news item, with credit!, I find it hard to really worry about whether or not I clicked through to the original source or not. Technically this is a public site, and that's where the violation would come in, but it's really more of a small isolated group. It's not even crawled that well. Have there been any salient court cases differentiating a message board/forum from a more standard website/blog? I view this as much of a private discussion among like-minded individuals, like an email newsgroup or a Slack group or chat room. Any re-post is at least three clicks from a homepage. And it's like like we're setting up an RSS feed of a writer's work. Lots of rationalization here, but ultimately, the law is the creator holds the copyright and is the one who decides how the work can be reused. Not you. It's not the writer we're interested in, it's the content itself. we're discussing it. we're _transforming_ it into a discussion of the news item at hand. When I repost Rubin's 30th anniversary post and comment about how I really like the replica ring giveaway and it's much better than the lame video programming they did in 2006 that's fair use. This is news propagating and commenting and criticism and all those things governed by fair use. And there's nothing inherently special about using Rubin instead of say Maria Guardado's post on the same topic. Another example of fair use because the work itself isn't particularly creative. I suggest you actually look up fair use: § 107 . Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use40 Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include— (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Note #3. And #4 also comes into play, since the website is selling ads, and posting the article means fewer people see them -- which hurts them financially. I'd also like to point out that I'm pretty sure I've never copy and pasted an entire article here, I usually link and comment. I just happen to be interested in the evolving nature of media and content and how it's governed. As am I, but the difference is that I look at what the law actually says, instead of making pronouncements about how I want it to be. I think this is a great change, not only due to the law, but due to the fact that it's silly to copy an entire article to comment on it. If someone is too lazy to click on a link, that's too bad. It's also silly (and lazy) to do what I just did. I used the quote feature on an entire lengthy post when it's the post previous to mine and I'm only commenting on a small part of it.

I was kinda thinking the same thing. Good point