Bangkok Post Bans Thaivisa From Using Its Content

[Trouble]

I think it is perfectly understandable why the Bangkok Post is concerned about this issue. Their advertisers are paying the Post money hoping the people seeking news and information will also read their ads and buy their products. If entire articles are reposted and there is no need to visit the Post's website the advertisers will stop advertising and the newspaper will have declining revenues and the downward spiral will continue. Where would Thai Visa be if the Bangkok Post, the Nation and other news sources started to go belly up? ThaiVisa gets it information from these vary news sources. There is no doubt that if Thai Visa cannot get stories to post then the visitors to their site would also gradually drop off. For those of you, who for one reason or another, don't support the Bangkok Post or Nation but get all your news here, you are contributing to the decline of those newspapers. Sure free is better but there comes a point which most print newspapers are facing declining revenues and therefore face going out of business. This is happening the world over and by continually getting our news on the computer, print news is rapidly declining. My fear is that one day our information will be in the hands of only a few and the ability to get differing points of news content will steadily decline. Maybe one day we will all be subjected to getting only news from organizations like Fox news. Where will be be then?

[dr_Pat_Pong]

the bp just prints ap news we've all read online the day before anyway. who gives a fckg shit.

 What's wrong with that? Doesn't hurt!. Happens all the time even here! I see a story on Thai Television on a Wednesday and get a "Breaking News" email from Thai Visa on the following Friday. Jing Jing ! No big deal!. Just delete and continue. Only takes 3 seconds. My time is valuable but not THAT valuable!

At last I can agree with you. Your time is not valuable at all.

[david96]

It should be remembered that many TV members can not go out and buy a copy of the "Bangkok Post"

They can read an internet version from their website.

One does not have to post the complete article on the forum, just the name and the link, the reader then

goes to the article directly via the link.

Most people buy a newspaper for its news content not its advertisments. I no longer buy a newspaper

unless I need to, I use the internet as a massive on line library.

Quoting the "Bangkok Post"on TV is in effect advertising the name for no charge for their benefit.

TV is a forum and is used by many as a source of information only.

[Bisto]

We have been there before Doc. I do listen .. IT IS HARD

[mca]

Tmark, while there's a lot of piracy going on here, there's very little Thai pirated content, particularly movies, and local companies like Grammy have been fairly strict with their music and karaoke CDs.

This is true. When I worked in BKK the hotel I worked for got into a little bit of trouble because their karaoke had 4 songs (from a possible 20000 +) that weren't officially licensed. To this day I still don't know how they found those needles in the haystack. A couple of times we were "hit" by inspectors making sure our copies of Microsoft Office were legit too.

If you're fairly visible then you're a target.

[ChalongBoy]

No Brainer and for those who cannot connect the dots, you have no brain.

I case people don't know that newpapes live on ad sales not newsprint sales. They cover the events and write stories and people buy stuff from the ads in the paper. TV prints without authorization seeing that a logo is printed to move above plagiaeizeation, diddeling about the legimated press of Thailand on a strool as an almsman looking for articles to reprint without authorization for the sole purpose to incerease their readership albeit the value of the paid advertisments. I wonder when PG news will figure out that TV is merely stealing their readers and customers. Thats right, I'll being poin teing that out to Macr Malloy monday and certainly to one of the finest red necks in Phuket, Don the rocked scientist whjom I speak to tonight at the Sat Nite good old fashion feed bag BBQ!

Go commercial but give me the option to not read the ads. Now is banning of members and removal of post critical to TV is no better than Hitler bruing books. That's OK TV's bosses.. TV has been taking a beating on the non commerical boards of late and I wonder if the Nation is the first of many to say, NO MORE PINCHING!

I can see it now, the core business and advert dept of TV rocking the cyber world when they are hauled off to the slammer and charged in some court with theft of news!

The intnet needs to wein the commercial from cyber world of places that operated under the cloak of free expression of opinion for the purpose of commercila gain! How that is different from the news print is that you know there will be ads in the print media but no one will cut off your account for speaking out in adverse.

OK, meet the needs of all and place an option in the control panel to block all adver content! I doub the web board builders would even consider thag function!

Ya want news, let it be gleaned the old fashion way. It will be more fun:

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story, William Randolf Hearst! aka Patty's Daddy!

[brahmburgers]

news and info media is going through a lot of changes/adjustments nowadays. Rather interesting, particularly with online implications.

Taking items from Bkk Post concept could be turned askew: What it some people / some web sites took items from Thaivisa.com?

For example, what if someone had an online magazine which showcased scams in Thailand, and proceeded to get 90% of their info as cut 'n paste from Thaivisa forums/discussions?

Similarly, I have a friend who is writing a book about Buddhism and psychology. He's lifted reams of info, again cut 'n paste, from Wikipedia. Such sites as Wiki and T.visa are not a whole lot different from each other (tho much different in scale), as they both have anonymous reader input, and opinions. One big difference is Wiki enables anyone to make changes to prior text, whereas T.Visa doesn't, except by moderators.

As T.Visa grows larger in scope (which I predict it will), its exposure and clout will increasingly effect other media and other web sites, similar to how Bkk Post is currently affected by T.Visa.

[backsoon]

Intellectual property

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Intellectual property (IP) is a number of distinct types of legal monopolies over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law.[1] Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Common types of intellectual property include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets in some jurisdictions.

Although many of the legal principles governing intellectual property have evolved over centuries, it was not until the 19th century that the term intellectual property began to be used, and, it is said, not until the late 20th century that it became commonplace in the United States.[2]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

Pardon me, but what is intellectual about Bangkok Post? Or did I miss something?

[webfact]

Posts deleted for legal reasons as Bangkok Post does not allow us to republish their content.

For now do not post any Bangkok Post content or links to their website

[rayong09]

What is the policy regarding linking to stories in The Bangkok Post? Is that prohibited too?

Of course it's not! As a web publisher myself, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) relies on 2 things:

1. Online optimisation (content, relevancy, keyword density, page layout, site structure, and so on..)

2. Off line optimisation ( non-reciprocal linking from other sites, blogs, and forums, along with visibility (promotion & traffic))

In fact, it is these 2 things mainly (plus a bunch of lesser variables) that gets websites found on search engines. This means that any online project just loves getting links to its pages, especially if they are free and come from aged, authority sites with Google Page Rank (PR).

Apart from the above, it is no crime in any country for any one website to hyperlink to another. No such law exists anywhere, nor would it serve any useful purpose.

Aitch

The problem is, when someone copy's and pastes large chunks of text from somewhere, if Googlebot, Slurp or MSNbot has not already crawled that content but finds it first on the site where it has just been copied to, that site will get the credit for it in the search engine result pages (SERPS) the bots will think that is the authority for that content. It is the search engines goal to give us ten different results on a results search page. So whoever's content is crawled first will get that benefit whilst the search engines filter any other pages/documents with the exact same content.

[joncl]

Hardly surprising as you are in partnership with their sole competitor . . . who's in dire financial straits and in urgent need of bailing out.

And posts from the forum here on thaivisa also appear on the nations web site on the front home page, where a post can be taken totally out of context.

[Crushdepth]

This is BS and am shocked ThaiVisa is lying down for this. News is news and can be shared via other news outlets if given credit. Large news organizations repost news articles from from small local papers all the time and simply need to credit the source. Go look at CNN or Fox right now for local news worthy events where they don't have reports on the ground.

Large news organisations *pay* for articles. Yes, CNN sometimes resorts to using other people's tweets without sending a cheque but that's kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of value.

[cyb]

This is BS and am shocked ThaiVisa is lying down for this. News is news and can be shared via other news outlets if given credit. Large news organizations repost news articles from from small local papers all the time and simply need to credit the source. Go look at CNN or Fox right now for local news worthy events where they don't have reports on the ground.

What makes you think thaivisa is taking this lying down?

Are you privi to what goes on behind the scenes?

If so please save George some precious time and inform us all.

Edited October 3, 2009 by cyb

[calmichael]

Providing content is expensive. The days of using anothers hard earned work product for free will have to come to a close. Many blogging sites like this are not non-profit organizations. If you want to use someone else's work product you will have to pay for it. If the print media is going to survive in any way shape or form, they must adapt. This is an early indicator of that new paradigm. We are in the habit of getting our newspapers and magazines for free on the internet. I believe that those days are numbered.

[calmichael]

Never mind, they will come around eventually. There are plenty of formerly powerful news organizations in the West also trying to figure out how to claw back the omnipotent control over news and information they once had. Happily, the boat has already sailed and the mass general public are all on board. Bon voyage

too true its nice to see the likes of the murdoch clan trying to extort money by charging for on line news........ but far too late.... as you say the boat has truely

left port without them

Remember televisions with 'rabbit ears' antennas? Now look at your T.V. See that cable? We now pay for content that we previously received for free. Now look at the Bangkok Post article that you are reading online. Soon, we will have to pay a bit for the privilege of getting that content delivered to our desktop. And rightly so.

[cyb]

I have a question for George or admin/Mods to answer.

Bangkok post has withdrawn the right for Thaivisa to quote or link to them.

There must be possibly thousands of posts linking BP on previous threads from maybe years back, What happens to them are they allowed to stay?

[hammered]

Providing content is expensive. The days of using anothers hard earned work product for free will have to come to a close. Many blogging sites like this are not non-profit organizations. If you want to use someone else's work product you will have to pay for it. If the print media is going to survive in any way shape or form, they must adapt. This is an early indicator of that new paradigm. We are in the habit of getting our newspapers and magazines for free on the internet. I believe that those days are numbered.

It has just been announced in London that the Evening Standard (London Paper since 1820's) will be given away for free and will rely on increased advertsing revenue to support itself, so maybe there will be alternative business model's than the Post's.

[cyb]

Providing content is expensive. The days of using anothers hard earned work product for free will have to come to a close. Many blogging sites like this are not non-profit organizations. If you want to use someone else's work product you will have to pay for it. If the print media is going to survive in any way shape or form, they must adapt. This is an early indicator of that new paradigm. We are in the habit of getting our newspapers and magazines for free on the internet. I believe that those days are numbered.

It has just been announced in London that the Evening Standard (London Paper since 1820's) will be given away for free and will rely on increased advertsing revenue to support itself, so maybe there will be alternative business model's than the Post's.

Is that free-dom of the press taken to the extreme

[Rumfoord]

What is the policy regarding linking to stories in The Bangkok Post? Is that prohibited too?

Of course it's not! As a web publisher myself, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) relies on 2 things:

1. Online optimisation (content, relevancy, keyword density, page layout, site structure, and so on..)

2. Off line optimisation ( non-reciprocal linking from other sites, blogs, and forums, along with visibility (promotion & traffic))

In fact, it is these 2 things mainly (plus a bunch of lesser variables) that gets websites found on search engines. This means that any online project just loves getting links to its pages, especially if they are free and come from aged, authority sites with Google Page Rank (PR).

Apart from the above, it is no crime in any country for any one website to hyperlink to another. No such law exists anywhere, nor would it serve any useful purpose.

Aitch

links, texts referring to other texts, the hypertext, that is what the world wide web keeps running.

and acoording the TVforum rules links to BP are now prohibited.

guess why?

not because the BP bans them. BP just don't want that everybody copy and paste their content.

but because the SEO brains of TVforum are tight-fisted with giving links to somebody else, somebody else could get a better Page Rank. it's SEOism grudge.

[rayong09]

No PR is passed rel="nofollow" is used.

[opalhort]

I understand the request from the BP not to post content (copy/paste), but links to their own web-site???? This just doesn't make sense and I don't think it has any legal standing.

Could it be that TV has a certain clause in their contract with the Nation (rival publication to the BP) in this regard and now TV is trying to put the blame on the BP????

opalhort

[xminator]

Personally I think Thailands Expats might be better served discussing politics elsewhere given the numerous and changing rules on what and whatnot can be discussed. A discussion where at best half a situation can be discussed is useless.

[george]

Update:

It's weekend so I wouldn't have answers to questions until next week.

Bangkok Post has now updated it's TOS:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/republishingpolicy/

[opalhort]

Thanks George for clarifying this issue.

But according to their policy statement it appears it is okay to post plain links.

Web readers can refer to or quote the Bangkok Post contents only by posting a headline with a URL link to the source page on the Bangkok Post website.

opalhort

[opalhort]

So, any move by TV to block linking to the BP must be purely "Nation" driven? Yes, No?

My vote is YES!

opalhort

[george]

Thanks George for clarifying this issue.

But according to their policy statement it appears it is okay to post plain links.

Web readers can refer to or quote the Bangkok Post contents only by posting a headline with a URL link to the source page on the Bangkok Post website.

opalhort

Thaivisa.com policy for now is that no content from Bangkok Post is allowed. Please do not link. I expect this policy to be updated within the next week.

Thanks all for your input so far!

[Drew Aitch]

No PR is passed rel="nofollow" is used.

True, but there is a potential that the one following the link will not return to the site that provided that link, thus resulting in losing a visitor/customer to another website! Even when that link opens in a new window (or tab), it doesn't necessarily mean that the visitors will return to the site which gave the link and carry on browsing its pages.

Generally speaking, a web surfer dislikes links opening in a new window as it complicates the browsing experience having too many sites open at a time, but i can understand why some web masters do it.

Aitch

[hhgz]

"The problem is, when someone copy's and pastes large chunks of text from somewhere..."

The problem is that many TVers can neither read nor understand the printed content. Accordingly, they are incapable of summarizing a story in their own words.

What you get is "According to Wiki...", several pages cut-and-pasted, or a simple "this is right <URL>". Many times, attempting to summarize a story, their summary is at odds with the actual story.

[vanalli]

"Web readers can refer to or quote the Bangkok Post contents only by posting a headline with a URL link to the source page on the Bangkok Post website."

So we go from a sensational "banning" to something that isn't really all that unreasonable on the part of the Bangkok Post. May have been an idea to get all the facts before taking cheap shots at the Post and making this issue far more dramatic than it needed to be. All this silliness could have been easily avoided and there is no reason why users here should not have been able to link to and use headlines from Bangkok Post and Phuket Wan stories.

This also comes from Nation's website:

"Our users are not allowed to republicise or use any information and photographs including, but not limited to, text, graphics, video and audio content for commercial purpose except for your own personal use."

[Roger_JG]

Members quoting or posting Bangkok Post content will be warned by our moderating team, and the post will be deleted without warning.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Talk about self censorship... Bending gracefully...

Who is affraid of the bad big wolf... Pathetic... this is the internet or a scout camp?