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Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

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Re: Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

#11

Post by spokey »

URSpider94 wrote: post #8

I think there may be some confusion here. If the person truly and skillfully paraphrased your writing, to the point that there are no duplicate sentences between the two documents, it would be hard to argue that it is a derivative work. They have effectively created an entirely new document espousing all of the same ideas as yours, and on which you would not have any copyright claims.

> They have effectively created an entirely new document espousing all of the same ideas as yours,

IMO, that describes the situation well

> and on which you would not have any copyright claims.

That is also my understanding, unless I could somehow prove that they violated my copyright in the construction of this work. For instance, if one could prove that my copyrighted content was fed into a spinning algorithm to generate this new document, I think you could argue that it is in fact a derivative work.

But it's kind of an academic question anyway, as it would be very difficult to prove that in the first place, and likely not worth the time and trouble if you did. It may even require new legal precedent to win that sort of case, but I'm not that familiar with the entire scope of copyright law.

Just as an intellectual exercise, suppose I fed one of the Harry Potter books into a spinning algorithm to come up with a book about Larry Kotter, a pupil at the Cowpimple Academy of Sorcery. If my new book is just substituting synonymous terms in the original work, I'm pretty sure I'd lose a copyright claim. But how different would it need to be to become legal? To become undetectable? Suppose I was synthesizing multiple works for my spun article? How sophisticated would my spinning algorithm need to be before it really was creating new works?

Re: Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

#12

Post by spokey »

hcho wrote: post #10

What's the damage in monetary terms? Is it worth spending your time and money to get the spun article taken down?

I don't know exactly. What's a tiny bit of link juice worth? What's a tiny edge in Google ranking worth?

If it is simply sending an email, then, sure I'll spend two minutes doing that. If I need to engage a lawyer, no it's probably not worth that.

But again, my bigger concern is that if this content is now part of a spinning database then it's not one spun article, it's hundreds.

This hasn't happened yet, so maybe this just borrowing trouble I don't yet have, but even as an academic legal question, suppose this sort of sophisticated plagiarism happens to your content on a broad scale: can anything be done about it?

Re: Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

#13

Post by mgkimsal »

nailer wrote: post #9
ohashi wrote: post #5

spin your content and use it for links first.

Please don't. Same content from multiple domain names pointing back to the original is against Google ToS, and you might lose your PageRank unless you're Jason Calacanis in which case it's fine.

Would you provide the relevant ToS for that claim please?

Re: Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

#14

Post by spokey »

nailer wrote: post #9
ohashi wrote: post #5

spin your content and use it for links first.

Please don't. Same content from multiple domain names pointing back to the original is against Google ToS, and you might lose your PageRank unless you're Jason Calacanis in which case it's fine.

Believe me, I won't, but note that the "same content from multiple domains" problem is precisely what spinning sets out to solve. It's not the same content, certainly not at a superficial level.

Re: Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

#15

Post by dctoedt »

spokey wrote: post #11
URSpider94 wrote: post #8

I think there may be some confusion here. If the person truly and skillfully paraphrased your writing, to the point that there are no duplicate sentences between the two documents, it would be hard to argue that it is a derivative work. They have effectively created an entirely new document espousing all of the same ideas as yours, and on which you would not have any copyright claims.

> They have effectively created an entirely new document espousing all of the same ideas as yours, IMO, that describes the situation well > and on which you would not have any copyright claims. That is also my understanding, unless I could somehow prove that they violated my copyright in the construction of this work. For instance, if one could prove that my copyrighted content was fed into a spinning algorithm to ge…

1. Don't jump to the conclusion that the output of a spinning algorithm doesn't infringe the copyright in the original input. I haven't done any research on the question, but I'd be willing to bet a six-pack of Lone Star (beer) that a decent copyright lawyer could make the case that it is indeed an infringement. (I don't do litigation anymore, so I'm not that lawyer.)

2. You should immediately look into registering the copyright for your work -- if you're a U.S. author, you can't file suit for infringement without first registering the copyright.

3. GENERAL NOTE: Anyone concerned about having their copyrighted work ripped off should register the copyright NO LATER THAN three months after first "publication." Otherwise, you may well forfeit your right to have the judge order an infringer to pay your attorneys' fees (which can be no small matter). The U.S. Copyright Office has on-line registration capability at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/.

Re: Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

#16

Post by hcho »

spokey wrote: post #12
hcho wrote: post #10

What's the damage in monetary terms? Is it worth spending your time and money to get the spun article taken down?

I don't know exactly. What's a tiny bit of link juice worth? What's a tiny edge in Google ranking worth? If it is simply sending an email, then, sure I'll spend two minutes doing that. If I need to engage a lawyer, no it's probably not worth that. But again, my bigger concern is that if this content is now part of a spinning database then it's not one spun article, it's hundreds. This hasn't happened yet, so maybe th…

I doubt a single email would work. The content farm would actaully hold on the said article, hoping that the issue escalates to a public flame war and they get links from the blogosphere. Bad publicity is still publicity for those operations.

Re: Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

#17

Post by hotmind »

A lot of spinning going on here. Your competitor is spinning your content for his gains (not cool), and you are spinning your wheels wondering what you should do.

There is no better way to put a competitor on the defensive than by innovating. So innovate. Stop wasting your energy on this guy and do something awesome that will clearly differentiate your business from his.

This competitor isn't worth worrying about if he's doing weaksauce tactics like stealing your content.

Re: Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

#18

Post by roel_v »

spokey wrote: post #11
URSpider94 wrote: post #8

I think there may be some confusion here. If the person truly and skillfully paraphrased your writing, to the point that there are no duplicate sentences between the two documents, it would be hard to argue that it is a derivative work. They have effectively created an entirely new document espousing all of the same ideas as yours, and on which you would not have any copyright claims.

> They have effectively created an entirely new document espousing all of the same ideas as yours, IMO, that describes the situation well > and on which you would not have any copyright claims. That is also my understanding, unless I could somehow prove that they violated my copyright in the construction of this work. For instance, if one could prove that my copyrighted content was fed into a spinning algorithm to ge…

First, you need to stop thinking in terms of 'algorithms' and 'spinning'. It's irrelevant and confuses the discussion. I understand how tempting it is to frame new concepts (law) in terms of things you understand (computers) but it's very dangerous territory. It's also (this is not to bash you personally, just a general remark) why 95% of legal chatter amongst technical people on the internet is meaningless to lawyers ('meaningless' as in 'jibberish', 'flux capacitor'-style nonsense) - because the fundamental assumptions and reasoning methods are so vastly different that it's almost impossible to reconcile the two in the limited (in terms of expressiveness) environment of forum posts. FWIW I've been a programmer for over 10 years and hope to finish my law degree in a few months, so I have some inside experience on the two worlds, and in how the two interact (or rather, seem not to be able to interact).

Furthermore the question whether something is derivative does not depend on the form of representation, or the amount of similarity (on the textual level) between two works. If I write a theater play based on a book, I may not use a single sentence from the book; it's still a derivative work.

'Derivative' is casuistic. It's meaningless to argue about 'levels of similarity', in a legal context. The question is whether the second author based himself on the artistic values that the original author put in the work. The originality of a work is not necessarily in the wording, it's in the creative effort that went into the work. So if someone blends two works into one (without permission), he's violating 2 author's copyrights.

Re: Ask HN: I may have been spun. Is there anything I can do about it?

#19

Post by SpoonMeiser »

spokey wrote: post #14
nailer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't. Same content from multiple domain names pointing back to the original is against Google ToS, and you might lose your PageRank unless you're Jason Calacanis in which case it's fine.

Believe me, I won't, but note that the "same content from multiple domains" problem is precisely what spinning sets out to solve. It's not the same content, certainly not at a superficial level.

s/solve/cause/
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