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Competition is Good, Copying is Bad

by: Sharon Housley

Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley

I've always been of the opinion that competition is a good thing. It encourages all of us to be better and make better products. While it might be true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, copying someone else's work is simply wrong.

We recently came across a competitor using our sales copy. The competitor was using a web graph showing the traffic on one of our sites, along with our sales copy to promote their competing application. Digging a little further, I realized that their competing application was, in both form and function, identical to our application. The competing program contained identical screenshots, custom program icons and our help documentation. While the code of the program was, in fact, different, it was clear that our copyright had been violated.

We are not the first company to have our copyright violated and once the initial emotional reaction passed, we took action.

Dealing With Copyright or Trademark Violations:

Who, What and Where
Before reacting, it is important to do homework and research the alleged content violator. Arm yourself with information. Determining the who, what and where will guide you in taking the appropriate steps.

Determine WHO is violating your copyright
Research the website: do a Whois lookup to determine the site's owner. The domain owner can be found by entering the domain into http://www.whois.com and clicking on the link that says "Whois Lookup". If the copyright on software has been violated, check the PAD file for the author and release date.

Determine WHERE the website hosting is located
Determine where the website is hosted. Web hosts located in progressive countries will be more cooperative in addressing copyright violations. After determining the webhost's location, check the host's Terms of Service (TOS) and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to determine the level of cooperation you will likely receive. More often than not, a physical address and detailed information on how to report an abuse claim will be found in the webhost's terms of service.

Determine exactly WHAT violations have occurred.
When determining if a copyright violation has occurred, it is important to go back to the question of what constitutes a copyright violation.

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of �original works of authorship." This work can be literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, or similar intellectual works. Copyright protection is available to both published and unpublished works. It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. It is important to note that ideas can not be copywritten, and while it may be morally and ethically questionable, cloning a software application is not a copyright violation, yet copying a helpfile is a copyright violation.

Copyright protection exists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright. Evaluate the violator's work to determine if text, graphics or any of the program or website's artistic qualities are the same as your creative works. Print hard copies of any documents and save electronic versions of web pages and executables. Capture screenshots of offenses, save documentation or the Help file that contains any duplications of text. Enter the URL of the offending website into http://www.archive.org to see the website's history and determine a timeline during which violations occurred. Look and feel can be subjective, try to focus on obvious or flagrant violations. Copied text or Help files is obvious when filing a complaint with web hosts or other third parties.

What is Next?
If you feel your copyright has, in fact, been violated there are a number of steps that you can take. Contacting third party service providers is a good starting point. Make a list of the providers with whom you can contact to report the violations.

1. Hosting
2. Online Ordering
3. If Software, Download Sites
4. Associations or Organizations

Aside from service providers, consider using existing relationships with parties who have a mutual interest or relationship with the other party. Often, knowing key people can result in a rapid response and increased dialogue with the purported offender.

Send simultaneous emails to each of the parties identified. Include details of the violation; using a PDF that displays screen captures or copies of text violations with website pointers is helpful. In the email, explain the action you wish to occur. If you want the web host to remove the website, say so. Also, ask that they keep you apprised of the situation.

In most cases you will receive responses from webhosts or registration services that require you to provide additional details so that the infringement can be investigated. It may seem obvious to the copyright holder, but the web hosts typically have a contractual agreement with their clients and are legally obligated to research any infringements before removing hosting or registration services.

Send a Cease and Desist letter and an email detailing that a copyright has been violated, include a reasonable deadline by which the offending copy or application should be removed. It is not necessary to provide the offender the details of the violation, as it is likely they are already aware of the offenses that have occurred. These actions will generally open a dialogue with the offender. If the offender ignores requests to remove the material that infringes on your copyright, pursue action with third party services. This will likely get the offender's attention.

Artists, developers, and writers all work hard to create unique material and copyrights should be respected by all.

About the author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage a wireless text messaging software company.

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Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds
by: S. Housley

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.

It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.

Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption

Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.

Hosting

The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.

FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.

Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html

Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.

The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.

Redirects

Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.

Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.

Uniquely Named Transparent Images

Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.

Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics

Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.

http://www.pheedo.com

SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.

http://www.syndicateiq.com/

FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).

http://www.feedburner.com

Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.

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