I seem to be writing more and more blog posts about large content providers not being happy with free publicity on FootyTweets, RugbyTweets, CricketTweets and MotorTweets. So whats happend this time? Well the BBC have written a letter to me and said that I am infringing their copyright by framing their content. I immediately went to Twitter (@ollieparsley) and let everyone know what had happened and the immediate responses were that framing content is not copying it.
This then set me off and I have written a letter back (at their request) after removing the frame and promising not to infringe their copyright. Below I have included some text from my reply letter. It brings up a number of factors:
I will now go into my reasoning for using framed content on my site.
BBC content
The BBC content in the frame IS the BBC sports pages, not scraped, not crawled, not copied, simply had a navigation frame placed above it.Digg.com
The site that has 10s of millions of visitors every month that have, for the last few months, started using the “Digg bar” that puts content, quite a lot of which is BBC’s, into a Digg frame.
You will notice that I have brought up a number of issues with the way they want control of the way their content is delivered round the web.
Thanks
Ollie
What is it with them?
I am sure that if you escalated the matter and tried to speak to a senior person this could get resolved. After all, you haven’t signed up to a terms of usage. Who is going to arrest you - the Internet Police (no, they don’t exist!)
I’ve love a representative of the BBC to reply to this post.
After everything in the news about greed, and the take, take take culture; someone does something for free which is widely praised and highly successful and this is the thanks…
I really can’t see what their deal is. like you’ve said (also what i have echoed on twitter) to simply put a frame around a site - to my mind - doesn’t infringe on your rights as a content consumer and their rights as a content host.
to play devils advocate now, the ONLY thing i can think of is that by putting a frame around a website any hits that were made on the site would NOT go to the content provider but to the host of the frame, the same senario that Digg was accused of doing.
Hope it all gets sorted for you mate!
Absolutely agree with Ollie. His work does nothing but enhance the work of the BBC. His FootyTweets in fact, often lead me to the BBC web pages to look for more content on the subject he is showcasing. This is no different than a ReTweet which also gives the BBC even more of a higher profile.
sincerely,
Traci Moore
Sad news ollie, it might be worth getting in contact with Ian Forrester who works for the BBC. I follow his blog. I don’t know if he could help but he might be able to put you in touch with someone who can. Find him at cubicgarden.com.
James
Another Fantastic wordpress post, I will save this in my Propeller account. Have a great evening.