Does anyone have a problem with Wine Times?
February 26, 2010
Now hang on one second.
Wine Times - South Africa’s first wine news aggregator - came onto my radar a while back and I’ve been watching it’s progress for a while now - with a hint of disdain I must admit.
The only reason I came across it was because one of my posts appeared on their site - and then another - without my permission.
Now I do see the benefits to having a site like this and I do think it’s a worthwhile initiative.
BUT.
You cannot simply aggregate wine writers posts without their permission - is it legal for me to create an aggregated newspaper full of articles published in the Argus, The Cape Times and The Witness without letting the journalists know?
Furthermore and I think this is my biggest problem with the initiative - Wine Times aim to make money off the site through Google Adwords and Grape Fuel Wine Sales.
So basically they drive traffic through my posts and other wine writers posts - which in turn drives eyes to the Google Ads and the wine sales division of their site.
Sure, my posts being listed on their site will drive traffic to my site - I get that - but I was never asked whether I wanted my posts to be aggregated and I’m not sure I approve of others making money off the back of my posts. Then again, perhaps I should just move with the ‘times’.
I welcome comments on this topic - am I overreacting? Do you agree with me?
Ps. Perhaps I should start a website that aggregates wine news aggregators around the world - with a little help from my tech friends it should be up in no time at all. I wont have to write a thing and I’ll earn a handsome passive income.
Posted in Views & Opinions
February 26th, 2010 at 11:01 am
B- I’ve got to tell you as a fellow journalist that pirating someones work, even if the source is credited, is pretty dodgy unless the original writer gives permission to use it. I am not usre about new media, but if this happened in a newspaper or magazine, you would certainly have a case against it.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Interesting debate. From a business point of view it makes sense to aggregate content in the hope of aggregating readers, in the hope of selling more wine and advertising. It does seem a bit cheeky at the least and downright out of line at the most. Would like to see a response from Winetimes here, and perhaps more original content? I know wine.co.za does aggregate some content but it is clear where it is coming from PLUS they pay people to contribute original content. GREAT question here
February 26th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Ja, MyCapeTown aggregator has been using my stuff without permission for ages and I also found one of my articles on the Kulula magazine!
February 26th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
On the whole I think Wine Times is OK. It doesn’t post entire articles (you said your post was shown there but you didn’t give a link so I don’t know if it was the entire thing).
By posting a title and the first few sentences it act like a Google search or the RSS blog feed app that many of us have on our blogs.
There are also signs that there are humans behind it and that items are selected by people and they choose appropriate images rather than just rip off from the original site.
What I don’t like about them is their anonymity. Nothing except an email address. Why? Who are they?
The email is 406.co.za
Go to their website and you read
“406 media develops and conceptualize niche online insensitive”
– Does anyone have any idea WTF that means
winetimes.co.za is registered to
Gregory Montgomory
Dominant alpha male (he’s given thatas his title)
406
406 Wolroy House, 37 Buitenkant st, Cape Town
0218015414
0218015414
greg@406.co.za
Why not give him a call??
406.co.za domain is owned by
2a. registrant : Teacherseeker
2b. registrantpostaladdress: #406 Wolroy House 37 Buitenkant Street
2c. registrantstreetaddress: #406 Wolroy House 37 Buitenkant Street
2d. amount : 0.00
2e. paymenttype : I
2f. billingaccount : mused media
2g. billingemail : accounts@mused.co.za
2i. invoiceaddress : 14 Old Castle Brewery, 6 Beach Road, Woodstock, 7915
2j. registrantphone : 0214479143
2k. registrantfax : 0866668733
2l. registrantemail : acounts@mused.co.za
2n. vat : 4740233475
3a. operationaldate : 2008/09/12 23:05:06
February 26th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
On a positive note, if someone is cribbing your stuff your posts are being taken seriously. As your father I am somewhat proud of you.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Well Peter, I guess your quote from their website about what they do explains why they don’t write their own copy!
I have also had stuff on there and wondered whether to make a fuss or not but in the end left it. I suspect that if I requested, I could get it removed and, if it appears that they start making huge amounts of money from the site, then that is what I may well do. However, I do wish they had had the courtesy to ask me or to at least inform me that they were using my work before doing so. My husband was at a bloggers conference last week and discussed this very matter - to no conclusion sadly. I guess this is one of those new areas of law/etiquette which we all have to work out for ourselves!
February 26th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Wine Times isn’t “South Africa’s first wine news aggregator” either
http://www.melgabinternational.com have been running a wine news aggregator for years. I had a run in with them for using my entire post. Then I found a swith on Blogger that disables the feed after the first paragraph.
melgabinternational show their physical address and phone numbers on their pages.
BTW — WineTimes have a (c) Copyright claim on their pages. Oh yeah!!
February 26th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
I agree with Peter. As long as they don’t take your entire article without permission.
And I think it is a good thing for you if they have only the first paragraph with a link back to your site.
Now you know the importance of making that first paragraph very enticing!
February 26th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
a response to the post from wine times:
Hi Brendon
Thanks for noticing us. We surely welcome your post and concerns.
Let us lay it all on the table. Trade secretes exposed, just because you asked.
We always knew winetimes.co.za might be controversial. From our side we truly started the site to create a platform to showcase the South African wine industry and writers.
Let’s first make it clear as to how the system works. We’ve created an url shorten (mostly used in twitter) - wyn.cc Anyone can shorten a link and any links shortened automatically gets submitted to winetimes, which aggregates it, if related to wine and the South Africa wine industry. (currently 10 000+ links shortened)
The idea was by no means original. Sites like http://digg.com/ , http://tweetburner.com/ etc and locally http://afrigator.com/ being doing this for a while. We just apply it to a niche, in this case South African wine, and present it in a more magazine style.
Now on the money front - I can assure you we do not make anything from this yet. Compare to the effort we put into this project we should have can it long ago
This however been said, we do plan to make something from it in the future. We do not have deep pocket, in fact I just happen to be a developer who loves wine. You are a writer who lovers wine. If I had money I would love to pay you to write for winetimes.
So how can we pay you and the rest of the wine blog industry back.
winetimes.co.za is build on Wordpress MU platform. This enable us to create a platform which will allow bloggers like yourself to monetize your blog through wine sales. The system is build in such a way that when a blogger writes a post and use any wine farm’s name, it will create a link to that farms wine on http://shop.winetimes.co.za (not yet launched). When readers then buy wine through this link, we will share profits with the blogger 50/50. Obviously there’s some other initiatives in the pipeline to benefit both parties as well.
However you make a valid point and we will immediately add a system to prevent your post to be shorten with wyn.cc (or anybody requesting to do so).
Again we just want to reiterate that we only have the best intentions at heart.
Best Regards
Jan Laubscher
February 26th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Hi Peter
We’re just the general South Africa wine drinker, trying to tell our fellow drinkers that there’s more options then just Tassies and Two Oceans out there.
The reason why we do not have an address or telephone number is that we only started the site 3 weeks ago and we have not find a suitable place on the site to put it yet. We like visuals
to be balanced
(Brendon if I can borrow (a bit more) space on your blog.)
Peter
My cell 0832570191
Address 406 Wolroy House, 37 Buitenkant Street, Cape Town.
If you want to see a mug shot hope over to http://za.linkedin.com/in/janlaubscher. Warning you might not like wat you see.
Ciao
February 26th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
I am busy inviting any food and wine bloggers I can find on the internet to the first ever food bloggers conference that I am busy organizing. You can find all the info here http://sa-food-blogging-conference.blogspot.com/
The cost is R430 all inclusive for the day. Sunday 21 March at Giggling Gourmets Cooks Playground opposite the new Cape Quarter. There will be lunch and great speakers and a nice big goodie bag stuffed with nice things. And fab give aways and prizes. Very exciting stuff.
Hope to hear from you soon. And if you know of any food or wine bloggers that might be interested in attending please could you either let them know about it or let me know their blog addies and I will go invite them. Thank you so much. I need to get the word out urgently….
Colleen (aka browniegirl) xx
February 27th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
What about if you included a Creative Commons license on you blog?
February 27th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Hi Brenton
You can now block your site at http://winetimes.co.za/block-your-site/ This will prevent anyone submitting any of your sites content to http://winetimes.co.za.
February 27th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
oeps Brendon
March 1st, 2010 at 9:14 am
Aggregation is a sticky subject - some guys love it, some guys hate it.
I read an interesting take on RSS (which is what most aggregators use) being referred to as Raping Sites Slowly.
My general rule of thumb when coming across anyone aggregating my stuff is if I can find a direct link back to the article that I originally wrote I am cool with it.
After all an aggregator is just one more way to get traffic to my site.
We are all cool with Google and other Search Engines copying our entire site content so why not an aggregator?
By the way if you feel that you want to ensure that only an ‘intro’ is available to your article via your RSS feed this can be done so that the aggregator only gets a ‘teaser’ to post.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:18 am
hi all
im glad this post has created some debate - its an important one for those involved in new media i think.
thanks for all the comments and views shared on the topic.
and great to see jan from wine times getting back to everyone and telling us what wine times is all about and how it came to be.
there is an obvious passion for wine and like i said in the post: “I do see the benefits to having a site like this and I do think it’s a worthwhile initiative.”
i think the main point i was trying to drive home was that i think everyone would have appreciated some sort of communication about the wine news aggregation before and while all the posts starting being aggregated. thats all.
nikki makes a good suggestion re creative commons licences and many of you make valid comments about the powers of google etc. they are all great observations.
aggregators are vital in the new media space but they must be permission based.
wine times have reacted quickly and created a block your site link (if you feel the need): http://winetimes.co.za/block-your-site/
i for one will not be blocking my site because i think wine times is a great new addition to the local wine scene and more importantly it will help all of us spread the word that south african wine is seriously good stuff.
March 1st, 2010 at 11:20 am
Copyright only allows you to publish 20% of an article with a link to the original article. You must however credit the author and the source.
WINE.CO.ZA only uses this for headline news from international publications - with permission to do so. Our feature articles are sourced from writers that we pay an undisclosed amount per article.
I know of other publications that publish entire articles from international publications without give credit to the source, only the author.
The original article:
http://www.decanter.com/news/295407.html
The South African version:
http://www.winedirectory.co.za/index.php/Wine-News/tim-atkin-moves-to-the-times.html
March 1st, 2010 at 11:47 am
100% concur Cru Master. I hope this awareness for winetimes will lead to MORE articles being submitted as I love the site and the initiative. Good to clear the air though
June 17th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Thanks for your research.