Ziff Davis To Website: License To Link, Updated

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently Ziff Davis is threatening pocketpctools.com with legal action for posting a snippet from and link to a Ziff Davis story. Is it just me, or is this sort of the IDEA of the internet? From pocketpctools.com: 'We are currently being threatened with legal action by a large organization that produces news stories (I am trying to find out if I am "allowed" to post the emails they have sent me). A while back (about a month and 70 posts ago), one of our admins posted a story that introduced you to one of their stories. Needless to say, there was a small editorial about the said story, a short quote from the story, a link to, and full credit given to them for the story.'" Update: 08/08 23:55 GMT by S : To clarify, Ziff Davis/EWeek (and not ZDNet, as the submitter and linked story suggest) are involved in this story. Update: 08/09 02:08 GMT by T : Matthew Rothenberg of eWEEK writes with a clarification (below); it seems like this is just a tempest in a teapot, and linkers can breathe easy.

Rothenberg writes: "Hey! I'm the executive editor in charge of eWEEK.com -- and before this situation unravels any farther, I need to make a couple of quick clarifications about our reprint policy:

While I haven't gotten all the details about what happened, this legal warning to PocketPCTools seems to be a result of miscommunication within our company. We understand and embrace the principles under which sites such as PocketPCTools link to and excerpt our content. There are plenty of occasions when a professional media company needs to question the wholesale appropriation of its content or the use of its marks. From everything I understand about the PocketPCTools case so far, this is NOT one of those occasions!

We're moving to correct the situation now ... PocketPCTools was apparently acting within the appropriate bounds of Web etiquette -- actually, doing us a favor by sending us the traffic -- and Ziff Davis was apparently mistaken in issuing this warning.

My personal apologies to anyone inconvenienced by this error. We're investigating the situation now and will act accordingly."

Don't Worry... You're Covered.

[Anonymous Coward]

They have no case because you provided only and excerpt, gave the source, and provided a link. If it were pay-for-use content - it would be different. Sounds like they are just trying to bully the small guys of the net.

Ziff-Davis != ZDNet

[buzzdecafe]

For the record: In 2001, CNET bought ZDNet. Ziff-Davis magazines were spun off to another company, Ziff-Davis Media. eWeek is Ziff-Davis, not ZDNet.

Re:If the content's protected

[TWX]

Remember though, the courts are stupid. They ordered 2600 Magazine to not link to anything ever having any remote thing to do with DeCSS. That looked like a pretty damn clear cut case of violations on 2600 Magazines' rights to freedom of speech, and also was kind of contrary to the entire point of HTML, but the courts did what they did anyway.

Wait a min...

[strredwolf]

They followed MLA spec for literary works! ZDMedia has no right to demand removal when it's been properly quoted.

Re:If the content's protected

[HrothgarReborn]

Yes but linking to DeCSS would be contributing to a crime (in the view of the court). They were not told they could not do so because it voliated the IP of others. It would be like prohibiting a site from linking to kiddie porn. It is contributing to people distributing illegal material. I disagree about DeCSS but the legal principle is sound.

This case is about not being able to review _legal_ articles without paying a fee and getting permission. That means thay could silence any nay sayers, and it contradicts previous rulings on fair use.

Re:Uh Oh

[Dark Lord Seth]

No no no, ZDnet is apparently not owned by Ziff/Davis anymore.

eWeek, is though. [eweek.com]

Jeroen

Re:Let's send a message...

[John_Booty]

I'll boycott linking to them, for sure.

I have a medium-sized website (about 170,000 pageviews a month and 1,300 members) and while I'm sure they aren't even going to NOTICE a lack of links from my site, I'll do my small part and not link to them ever again.

If everybody did the same...

Boss of eWEEK.com here ...

[MatthewRothenberg]

Hey! I'm the executive editor in charge of eWEEK.com -- and before this situation unravels any farther, I need to make a couple of quick clarifications about our reprint policy, both here and on PocketPCTools: This was a total screw-up involving an overzealous legal intern, not anybody on our online team. There's still some education that needs to happen within our company about what constitutes fair use on the Web -- and unfortunately, this warning went out without the knowledge or approval of our online team. There are plenty of occasions when a professional media company needs to question the wholesale appropriation of its content. Nevertheless this is manifestly NOT one of those occasions! In fact, I didn't know that this hornet's nest had been stirred until it hit Slashdot. That's clearly a breakdown of communication, since I'm the guy running the site! :-) We're moving to correct the situation now ... PocketPCTools was obviously acting within the appropriate bounds of Web etiquette -- actually, doing us a favor by sending us the traffic -- and Ziff Davis was obviously mistaken in issuing this warning. My personal apologies to anyone inconvenienced by this error, and I'm personally going to see that it isn't repeated in the future. Matthew Rothenberg Executive editor Ziff Davis Internet http://blog.ziffdavis.com/rothenberg

Re:As always, the summary is wrong.

[MatthewRothenberg]

You're right! This was arrant nonsense -- and it's not actually our policy on eWEEK.com.

My sincere apologies to PocketPCTools for this misstep by our legal department.

Matthew Rothenberg
Executive editor
Ziff Davis Internet
http://blog.ziffdavis.com/rothenberg

Nothing new, Nando did the same

[NewtonsLaw]

I've been aggregating news headlines and links on the Net for longer than I care to remember (I'm in my tenth year) and I can tell you that this is nothing new.

Way back in 1998 I had a battle with [com.com] The Nando Times when I was running 7am.com which was one of the most successful aggregators of all time.

Nando said "pay us $100 per month for the right to link or we'll sue"

I said "bring it on"

They said "um, err, well okay we won't" and then attributed their back-down to the fact that I was in New Zealand and they were in the USA so such a legal battle would be too hard to wage.

The reality was that I formed an informal group of other online publishers and aggregators who simply stood up to these ridiculous tactics. Seeing they were outnumbered and copping a heap of flack in the media, they gave up their ill-conceived efforts.

When I asked the head of Nando.Net why they were averse to me effectively extending their reach and delivering huge numbers of eager-eyes to their ad-laden pages I was told that their ad revenues weren't enough to cover the cost of serving up those pages so more traffic meant more cost.

Someone ought to have taught those guys how to run an online publishing business!

I've also had similar battles with other publishers such as Television New Zealand here in NZ who simlarly threatened me with all manner of dire consequences if I didn't stop linking to them.

Once again I invited them to do their worst and they backed down.

At one stage I was involved in (and winning) so many battles over the issue of hypertext linking and the intellectual property rights associated with such things that I regularly was invited to talk to the legal profession (some of my stuff even scoring a mention in the US Bar Association's Journal) and other online publishers.

I should point out that at all times I linked ethically -- this meant no framing, full attributions and only ever using the headline and sometimes the first line of the article.

One thing *all* publishers should do is publish a linking policy on their website so as to let other sites know what they consider to be fair and reasonable. I do this [aardvark.co.nz] on my Aardvark daily internet commentary and I also continue to aggregate headlines [aardvark.co.nz] (including some from eWeek when they're running something worth a mention). The funny thing is that these days, nobody tries to pick a fight with me :-)

But, if Ziff Davis/eWeek are thinking about doing so, I once again say "Bring it on! And let the good times roll (again :-)

Re:Uh Oh

[JPriest]

ZDNet is now owned by CNet (of news.com, download.com, search.com, shopper.com, GameSpot, and others)

Re:Blogs

[Pharmboy]

I agree and you do make a point I usually follow. But under this circumstance, email is a decent second best, being that it is a tech company. They are used to most of their mail being email. But for most companies, I do, and you should, use snail mail. The format would still be the same, with a valid return route for the letter.

Re:Blogs

[Pharmboy]

Simple. I am the corporate guy that reads those letters, and letters like you suggest would get thrown out immediately as some nut. The ones from intellegent and polite people WE read at the meeting. Its not my opinion, its reality.

Letters from illiterate, rude, hate filled people are never taken serious. You *DO* let them know, but when you are talking about getting 1000 people to write, its more effective if those letters are polite and not so easily dismissed.

One reason I am polite is that I DON'T have all the facts in this case, and experience tells me to not assume some website I just heard about 30 minutes ago is telling me the gospel truth. I am not going to go off the handle and start calling Ziff-Davis idiots, and then find out that the article was WRONG, and there was more to the story.

My goal is to persuade them to my point of view.

My goal is *NOT* to inform them that I think they are dicks.

You don't get very far persuading people or corporations when you treat them like crap or jump to conclusions when you don't have all the facts. Any idiot can write a hate letter that gets thrown away as soon as its opened. It takes a little more grace to have the letter actually get read by someone that matters.

Re:Boss of eWEEK.com here ...

[MatthewRothenberg]

You're obviously free to think what you want, but I think our track record speaks for itself.

Besides, if we seriously wanted to prevent linking:

a. We'd be kinda DUMB; and
b. We'd have to expect that people would take umbrage, right?

So tell me again, what would be the percentage in engaging in this behavior, even if they didn't post their concerns to Slashdot?

Unless making people mad and losing traffic were part of our business strategy, it sounds like kind of an asinine plan to me! :-)

Matthew Rothenberg
Executive editor
Ziff Davis Internet
http://blog.ziffdavis.com/rothenberg

Re:Boss of eWEEK.com here ...

[MatthewRothenberg]

Antaeus: Nope, I can't blame people at all for that.

I just wanted to be clear that this kind of situation concerns me -- whether or not it makes Slashdot!

My e-mail box is always open if folks have issues about how well we're working and playing with other sites. And my team understands just how crucial doing the right thing is when it comes to our success. And anything that seems to impede doing the right thing will receive my immediate attention.

Matthew Rothenberg
Executive editor
Ziff Davis Internet
http://blog.ziffdavis.com/rothenberg