As a content writer, I am very much interested in the issue of copyright abuse. With screen scraping, it's easy to do. (CNN might even accuse me of it for my posting on McCain and Fannie Mae.) And, what the heck? It's just words. I hear that a lot: "Just put in some content," as if no actual work was involved.
I had to work for that content. I had to gather and organize all the material, then try to inject some original thoughts. The stakeholders had to approve it, and then I had to get the legal department to sign off on it. It's not "just" content. It's work and you should respect it.
An article in the New York Times points out that publishers object to extensive quotes, even if the writer who appropriated them gives back links. The person reading the rehashed article may not follow the links, so the original publisher is not getting the eyeballs he or she needs to win advertising dollars. Another point the Times did not bring up is that Google takes points off PageRank for duplicated content. That's why everybody wants original content, both for their readers' pleasure, and for better search engine rankings. But, as I said before, conceiving and delivering original content is a lot of work. Which is why it is so much easier just to scrape someone else's off the screen.
Chris Crum of WebProNews invites us all to weigh in on this matter.
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