bouje

March 25th, 2010 at 11:06 PM ^

I'll be the first to say:

1. Do not click on the link he only has like 30 max views per item

2. What a piece of shit

Zone Left

March 25th, 2010 at 11:07 PM ^

Dude, that is seriously fucked up. They've got a bunch of Brian's and Tim's posts up there with no mention as to the author or even the site.

Who cares about stuff I post, but they do this for a living.

Also, there's no context given at all. Weird, shitty site. Don't give them the page views.

OMG Shirtless

March 25th, 2010 at 11:14 PM ^

It is in the forum titled "Other College Football Blogs" and has a link to the original post at the bottom of each post.

Additionally, it looks like the links go through google's feed burner, so they probably just collect RSS feeds. Whatever. If Brian wanted to stop it, he could change the RSS feed settings to only show the first paragraph of the articles. Not a whole lot different than anyone else reading the site through their GoogleReader without visiting the actual page and adding a "PageView"

willywill9

March 25th, 2010 at 11:31 PM ^

Fair enough, but it's still odd. Is that entire site built around being essentially a google reader? Is there no original content? If they do have original content, why not move those other posts into a "Blogs around the interwebs" section?

PS, I'm surprised they didn't steal the Korean facebook stalking/parent meeting story.

OMG Shirtless

March 25th, 2010 at 11:40 PM ^

If you look at the front page, it's really just a Notre Dame Message Board, and the Other College Blogs portion is just a sub forum.

http://www.irishenvy.com/

They could probably be a little more transparent with the headlines in the "Other College Football Blogs" section, but what can you do.

Many message boards collect RSS feeds and post them in one place, granted the one I visit the most, Motownsports, has links rather than the entire article, and the bot that posts them is named "RSSFeeder" not "IrishEnvy" but it happens.

Like I said, if it really bothered Brian he could change the RSS feed settings.

Zone Left

March 25th, 2010 at 11:24 PM ^

Lawyas tend to be expensive, that's why, and Brian's too busy sleeping on piles of platinum bars to bother paying them.

Maybe Jon Runyan can run on that platform to secure the massive MGoVoter segment in New Jersey. (end political discussion)

Irish

March 26th, 2010 at 12:12 AM ^

How is it not?

They're not taking credit for what is written, they link to the original article and its clearly labeled as from a different website/blog by being in its own forum. The articles are not premium and do not require a subscription.

How is it any different than linking and copying an espn, or whatever newspaper article is the topic of the day? I don't understand.

simonsays

March 26th, 2010 at 12:22 AM ^

This isn't like Brian quoting a sentence or paragraph in a yellow quote box with a prominent link. It's the entire post! Today's hockey post was 3,200+ words!

And it doesn't say where it's from! There's a link, but nothing says MGoBlog. CopyPaste 3200 words and they couldn't add 7 more characters to say MGoBlog?

Illegal? probably not, it's the blogosphere, and Brian's providing the full RSS feed. Douchey? Yeah.

Irish

March 26th, 2010 at 12:41 AM ^

why is the length of the article or post a factor at all?

I have seen entire articles that I have written reposted, without links or any credit given, I have seen entire espn, rivals, scout, freep, etc. reposted on the mgoboard and I have seen entire mgoblog articles reposted in forums without links or any credit being given. And no it wasn't on that message board.

simonsays

March 26th, 2010 at 8:19 AM ^

Why is the amount taken a factor? Copyright Law.

One of the factors of determining Fair Use is "amount taken":

http://www.newmediarights.org/guide/legal/copyright/fair_use/citizens_l…

"In terms of quantity, did you simply quote one paragraph of someone's eight paragraph blog post(likely fair use), or are you reproducing their rss feed in its entirety, with no commentary, on your website(likely not fair use). Qualitatively important? Amount and substantiality of portion used in relation to copyrighted work as a whole. "

Fair use is a bit wishy-washy in all definitions. But you get the point.

JLo

March 26th, 2010 at 10:21 AM ^

The biggest thing that controls whether or not something is "fair use" is economic impact. If there were a substantial number of viewers who were going to IrishEnvy rather than mgoblog, Brian would lose ad revenue - courts would consider this an impact on the market. But, as Brian points out, IrishEnvy gets a piddling number of viewers, most of whom probably wouldn't visit mgoblog anyway.

So, although it sounds dumb, this guy is safe because he runs a crappy messageboard that nobody reads. He's protected by his own obscurity.

Brian

March 26th, 2010 at 12:00 AM ^

As FA mentioned, I've known about this for a while. I asked them to stop but got no response. It's not really worth pursuing it further since the only harm is that a few ND fans who wouldn't be visiting the site anyway see the content. It's definitely not worth turning off full feeds.

Ryan

March 26th, 2010 at 12:48 AM ^

It's definitely not worth turning off full feeds.

God I can't upvote this enough. Not that I don't love visiting the full site (and infact I do on about 90% of RSS updates) but sometimes a man just wants to read the full story in the RSS feed. While I sympathize with the content-theft victims, RSS teasers irritate me to no end.

Tater

March 26th, 2010 at 9:43 AM ^

It is rather funny that most of the threads get somewhere between 15 and 23 clicks, while the plagerism of Brian's post has almost 100 now.

What he is doing would be OK to me, if he were to actually give credit to the original writer of the posts in something a little more noticable than "link to original article." A simple "From Brian Cook at Mgoblog" at the beginning of the repost would clarify things a lot.

Besides, his twenty-five readers don't get the joke, and it would probably be good if he explained it to them. That is assuming, of course, that he is in on it himself.