Steal this post!
It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that newspapers are in trouble. From major players to minor, cutbacks and closings are presently occurring industry-wide as publishers struggle to find viable business models suited to a 21st century technological paradigm.
The Jewish newspaper market is no exception, with local Jewish newspapers nationwide cutting back their staff and print schedules or shuttering their doors altogether.
One phenomenon that appears to be accelerating the decline of at least some Jewish news organizations is the rise of a group of Jewish news aggregation Web sites, predominantly serving the ultra-Orthodox community, which copy and republish in-full, without permission or payment, content from more prominent Jewish news sources, robbing them of both desperately needed licensing fees and revenue-generating Web site traffic.
JTA, for example, is a syndication service which requires that third parties sign a licensing agreement to redistribute our content. Nearly 100 Jewish newspapers around the world pay for this service dutifully, though that number is now declining due to the state of the industry. While we depend on these revenues to continue in our service as the primary source of national and international Jewish news coverage in North America and around the globe (as well as to provide our staff its parnassah), unauthorized Web sites such as Yeshiva World News, Vos Iz Neias, Matzav.com, COLlive, CrownHeights.info and CrownHeights.ch, which do not have licensing arrangements with JTA, reprint our content — and that of our colleagues and competitors — with impunity, despite the clear illegality of such practices. These Web sites then profit from the sale of advertising alongside our stolen content.
Ron Coleman, right, was honored at Agudath Israel's annual dinner in New York City, May 15, 2009.
Growing increasingly frustrated with this phenomenon and particularly its prevalence among a group which routinely portrays itself as the sole champion of "Torah Judaism," I turned to Ron Coleman, an intellectual property lawyer and one of Agudath Israel of America's 2009 Avodas Hakodesh honorees, to inquire about the legality and ethical considerations of such practices.
According to Coleman, whether or not one profits from such infringement, "it is not legal to copy-and-paste, in full, a copyright-protected article from any source without permission, even when attributing the copyright owner." It is also, he says, "ethically unacceptable, and essentially a form of theft, to knowingly infringe on someone's copyright."
Though the amoraim and tannaim, the authors of the Talmud, were unclear on the issue of copyright infringement — making cases for and against it — several poskim [Jewish legal authorities] of latter ages, such as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg and Rabbi Chaim Sofer, consider copyright infringement a violation of the eighth commandment: "Thou shalt not steal."
Even if one were to differ with these authorities, nonetheless Coleman believes "there are serious considerations of dina d'malchusa dina [obeying the law of the land] and chillul Hashem [tarnishing God's name]" that are less open to interpretation, and "which may be far more relevant in the context of a Jewish-identified Web site engaged in copyright infringement." By this rationale, when a significant number of ultra-Orthodox Jews are engaged in the overt violation of Jewish law, it reflects poorly not only on the ultra-Orthodox community, but on God Himself.
Such legal and religious considerations don't seem to be slowing these publishers down, however. And that is because they are enabled by their readers and advertisers, who provide them with the incentive to continue in such behavior. Until readers and advertisers alike stop providing these Web sites with traffic and revenue, organizations like ours will have to keep cutting back: Cutting budgets, cutting hours, cutting coverage and cutting staff, until there's nothing left to cut.
And then there will be no content left to steal.
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I don’t know if the problem is only Orthodox or not, but it’s pervasive and frustrating for me especially after spending several hours every day working to produce original news stories for my site, and then discovering competing sites displaying nothing but plagiarized text. I recommend that we design an emblem that may be displayed only on news portals containing original content, and that we develop and implement other approaches that will help keep the pressure on Jewish sites that don’t maintain decent journalistic standards. JTA, will you lead the drive? I’ll help! -Michoel@Chareidio
Interesting how different types from different stripes view the same issues in a different light. I am an editor of a website-and there is nothing that makes me happier than to see my articles and news items being posted on various websites across the board. It is then that I am sure that my mission- disseminating Yiddishkeit, is being done on a much broader scope than I could do by myself. I would like to be credited (not personally, but at least write the source..) but I don’t dwell on it. I also write for an international magazine, under pen names and I was tickled to recieve a newsletter from literally the other end of the world with a story that I translated and edited, retranslated by a cousin of mine and republished for a readership that has no access to the original. He had no idea that I wrote that peice..
Zocho melachto naase al yedai acherim…
Let’s all work together, and our impact and Kiddush Hashem on the web would be that much greater, and with unity we will merit Moshiach, speedily.
Faigi, your comments are well taken, and in terms of Yiddishkeit I wholeheartedly agree that dissemination is a key, nevertheless attribution is appropriate and ethical, and one should still ask permission. However, news production, even Jewish news is usually not Torah by any means. News is an industrial product served up usually with advertising, often in order to make money. In the least, journalists are typically paid for their work even if the publisher isn’t. Copy-paste is plagiorization plain and simple. My news service doesn’t make money, and I don’t do it for the money, but when I am researching the articles that I write, and come across literally word-for-word replications- (with no shame), it pains me to see editors, who should know better, piggybacking on other journalist’s hard work. From your post, you sound very idealistic, (I am too), but I believe that this particular application of your idealism as described in your comment above is misdirected. The ideal of “spreading-the-word” is only beautiful if it is performed properly and ethically. Otherwise it is a disgrace and is counter-productive. -Michoel@Chareidio
Perhaps JTA should publish a list of advertisers who support the pages that reprint content illegally. Just a list—readers can decide for themselves whether or not they want to avoid buying the products.
Faigi makes a good point. There is even another point of view. I go through many papers every day for my web site, but rather than copying the articles, I offer a link directly to the original (I hope) source. This way I am spreading the news that I believe needs to get out and not violating copyright laws; not to mention stealing ad revenue from the papers. I depend on the reporters who work hard to gather the news so I can appreciate the problem plagiarism. My web site is http://21stcenturychristian.org
The law of the land has not been decided. There is still the similar on going discussion between news organizations and Goggle News.
Negotiations between news organizations and Google News relate only to legal rights over headlines, not plagiarizing articles. -Michoel@Chareidio
Happy to help out, Daniel. I thought this article was fair enough, given that your thesis was transparent as soon as you started asking questions. I don’t believe you “singled out” so called ultra-orthodox Jews, merely websites that share a similar readership: that group.
Fundamentally, I agree with your thesis and your observation. I have to admit I always kind of wondered how such websites were finding the money to pay licensing fees. Some people are just naive, I guess!
You could have moved this post to the status of journalism if you had at least tried to contact the people running those websites, though, to at least see if they responded, and if so, what they think they’re doing, and why.
By the way, nice picture. Where’d you license it?
“By the way, nice picture. Where’d you license it?”
Zing!
FWIW-I have contacted these news organizations previously—with cease and desist letters. I therefore didn’t quite expect they’d be eager to participate in an interview on the subject. If any wish to submit a response, however, I’d be happy to publish it.
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Stuart
06/04/09 07:43 PM
I think this article is very unfair. You besmirch a whole “group” (as you call them) because of some people who have decided to do something wrong on the internet.
I assume you would never do that to any other group (gays, Arabs....whoever). Why is it ok to do that to “ultra Orthodox”.