There have been quite a few content aggregation sites that have cropped up in the recent past – both in India and US. ixigo.com, Yahoo Farechase, zoomtra for travel, Yahoo Jobsearch, bixee etc for jobs, spoteazy for electronics and there are many others in US in this space. My question is: What are the legality issues w.r.t content aggregation? Can the host websites sue the content aggregator for using their content for “commercial purposes”?
For example: I build a car portal aggregator from carwale.com, carzoo.com, carsalesindia.com etc. When a user searches on my website, he/she is presented results from any of these websites (with a brief summary) and when he/she clicks the link, they are taken to the host website. My revenue stream is sponsored ads. Once I get sufficient traffic, I may also open up the site to take listings directly.
Can carwale.com etc sue me on the basis “I am using their information for commercial purposes” or “I am using copyrighted content” etc – and yes, its written in the terms and conditions of all the content websites that their content cannot be used for commercial use without their explicit approval.
Atleast with travel, jobs the main revenue stream for the host web sites is not ad based (they are getting paid for subscription or when a transaction takes place). So content aggregators may not be perceived as direct competitors. But for free listing providers such as directory services, car listings, yellow pages, real estate websites where their primary revenue stream is also ad-based, content aggregators can be perceived as direct competitors (even though they drive traffic to the host site).
Do you think the host websites would actively sue the content aggregators. btw, CAN they sue? What about the “fair use” clauses – can they protect the content aggregators (in India)?
First of all, is this a big issue? How are the current content aggregators (in India) dealing with this issue? And should start-ups be worried about this? And how should they deal with this?
I would appreciate if anyone can shed more light on this.
regards
Vamsi (http://vamsikv.wordpress.com)
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Opt-out.
Based on the comments I see above, I have a question.
If there is no potential loss of ad-revenue, what other argument does a parent site (content provider) have to support itself?
– Aloke
http://www.iXiGO.com
In case the parent site does not give the permission (mostly in case of startups), an idea could be make a distinction in the presentation of the results. (ala sponsored and un sponsored)
Ramjee, I dint get this. How will the presentation of results effect the copyright policy or the perception of the parent site?
Vamsi.
This is very murky area.
As pointed out earlier, law on this issue is not very clear. Personally, my take is taking permission from the parent site is a nice approach to start with. In case the parent site does not give the permission (mostly in case of startups), an idea could be make a distinction in the presentation of the results. (ala sponsored and un sponsored)
Ashwin, Gururaj, Aloke,
Thanks for your comments. I think the consensus is that if you are aggregating non-ad revenue based websites, it maybe OK. But aggregating ad-based websites can be a strict no-no. Are there any successful aggregators for ad-based websites in US (or elsewhere). Google News did face problems with some European newspapers. But in the case of Google its a well established company and the host web-sites stand to lose a lot more by getting excluded. Are there examples of start-ups which are doing this (US or India)?
Aloke, for ixigo, did you guys first get permissions and then aggregated or first aggregated and then removed? Was it an opt-in or opt-out?
regards,
Vamsi.
The only history of litigation that I actually found in my research is an injunction that Naukri had filed against Bixee. Does anyone have the full story on that case and its ruling ?