So I was checking the server logs of my blog, and found several hits from a website called Watching the Watchers.
Imagine my surprise to find that they have lifted one of my Daily Kos Diaries. Published under my username, with a link to my DK page, and with a note at the bottom that it originally appeared at Daily Kos.
A little more poking around shows that I'm not the only DK diarist they have featured. In fact, their front page appears to mostly feature DK content.
THeir masthead reads,
Watching the Watchers is an online news and political commentary site that has been published since 2004. Our primary purpose is to foster dialogue and share information among liberals, but we welcome independents and conservatives when their views challenge our perspective.
The publisher, World Readable, also publishes The Drudge Retort (Not the DRudge Report, thanks to user FWIW for catching that).
You know, given how fast a diary falls off the list, I'm not exactly averse to getting more time out on the inter-toobs, and they are giving credit and links back. All good. But it's still kind of a surprise, and I think I would have liked it if they'd at least asked first.
What do you all think?
(Update) Folks in the comments point out that DK policy makes all material open. I'm cool with that, thanks for the explanation. I think it's polite to drop a comment on the original post, though, with a link so the author knows where their stuff is going. And for a site that says it's about "commentary", the absence of comments and original material means basically they are a news aggregator making ad revenue from our work. Frankly I'd rather Kos got the revenue. On the other hand with more people reading my work, I'm happier.
Just to clarify, I'm pretty happy with open source overall, I mainly just like to know where my work shows up and who finds it useful. But about 1/3 of those taking the poll are a little annoyed by this. So, consider this an FYI!
(Update 2)The publisher of Watching the Watchers, rcade comments below,
Although most of the content is from Kos at the moment, that will change as I add the ability to republish Creative Commons-licensed content and bring in content from the Retort.
I only consider Kos diaries that didn't make the front page here or get linked on the front page, and stories are chosen manually, not through an automated process. Hundreds of diary entries roll through here every day, and some good stuff falls through the cracks. All republished stories have a link to the author at the top and a link to the Kos original at the bottom.
As others have said, the Kos license permits redistribution "unless otherwise specified." So when a diary indicates that it should not be redistributed, or contains a copyright statement, I honor that. I also would stop republishing anybody who told me to stop, of course.
So, now we know.