5 CommentsFollow-up on Interfacelift and their witch hunt
I had recently wrote a post about publishers going after syndication which was triggered by vague situation around my Media RSS enhancer for Interfacelift wallpapers feed.
I had since got clear explanation from Yahoo Pipes staff so I can evaluate this mess in full. :)
What it was
My Pipe was enhancing RSS feed from Interfacelift by adding group of Media RSS tags to it:
- type of media content (image);
- thumbnail link (already present in RSS);
- calculated direct link to image file, in chosen before subscription dimensions.
Functionally that meant such feed could be additionally used in MRSS-aware software, such as 
John’s Background Switcher, in addition to regular feed readers.
Aside from that feed was untouched, there were no edits, claims of ownership or any kind of online integration by me. It became moderately popular with multiply clones made by other users in Pipes system. Doesn’t surprise me – as far as I know Media RSS support is something that people were asking Interfacelift to implement and were denied.
Interfacelift action
Situation was stale for months. I had only done minor update on pipe when Interfacelift changed link format. I had to be alerted by Dan Rough about changes, because I wasn’t even using Pipe myself at that time.
Until Interfacelift made formal “copyright violation” complaint against me to Yahoo.
Yahoo response
- my pipe was silently deleted;
- as far as I know no clones of my pipe either public or private were affected;
- Interfacelift was provided with instructions (openly available anyway) on blocking Pipes system from accessing their site;
- I was not made aware of what is going on by either party.
Situation went completely over my head. I received no demands, messages or other information and had to sort it out post factum.
My biggest gripe was about my pipe nuked together with Media RSS code that took some effort to develop.
Fallout
Interfacelift:
- Pipes access blocked to site and feed;
- RSS feed crippled to single item;
- terms of service updated with change of anti-syndication reasoning from server load to lost revenue (something I pointed out in my previous post) and prohibiting direct linking to images, as well as integration in any online service.
Yahoo:
- I was provided with explanations and offered to restore my pipe to reuse generic parts of it;
- as far as I see – no other action and no gripe against my Yahoo account.
Me:
- I won’t make an effort to develop and publicly provide new solution;
- I am confident that Interfacelift won’t win such arms race – I made things public by openly sharing my solution but there are numerous alternatives any inquiring techie will discover and use if interested;
- Interfacelift showed no desire to communicate with me directly and went after my Yahoo account instead with bogus (as for me) copyright complaint. Not nice.
- I care about my accounts, more than I ever will about Interfacelift and their anti-syndication witch hunt. So this was bit of a scare for me.
Opinions
I tried to be careful in my judgments but one clear result of going after syndication is alienating power users. So far feedback I got only confirms that. Fellow techies see Interfacelift actions as regressive and atypical to modern Internet.
Non-techies could not care less.
Was I breaking Interfacelift TOS? Probably bordering that. Don’t expect me to feel very guilty.
Was I breaking their copyright? Hell no. Interfacelift doesn’t even hold copyright over images. And despite idea occupying idle heads from time to time – no amount of linking to freely accessible file could possibly violate copyright.
Overall
The way Interfacelift handled situation shows that they are more worried about spreading idea of syndicating their content (and hypothetical loss of revenue) than fact of syndication itself. Otherwise they’d start with prevention of syndication and not with complaining about it going on.
Objectively they cannot enforce non-syndication without making content private and they can’t make content private on site fueled by community submissions.
Hence witch hunt after the idea. Luckily in modern Internet ideas are big scary monsters that are real bitch to hunt.
Get updates via RSS
Personally I’ve always had but one attitude towards websites behaving as InterfaceLIFT : boycott. Such attitudes as theirs are of another time, another world. There are hundreds, thousands of sites dedicated to icons and wallpapers, so I couldn’t give less a damn of forgetting those who believe that because their content is that of quality should allow them to act as pure dirty insanity.
Poor InterfaceLIFT, may God and/or wisdom help them :)
@Transcontinental
I wonder if I even have readers and friends that think otherwise. :) Opinions are completely one-sided so far.
Unfortunately how publishers handle syndication has very long term and hard to measure results. Because of that publishers that provide RSS just because it is common have no clear understanding that it is way more than just providing updates.
My personal wish is that Interfacelift gets some wisdom indeed amd improves its advertising practices. Otherwise who knows what will get in their heads next time. :)
Any industry related to the Web, be it music, or whatever other publishing must understand that flexibility in their minds and in their attitudes is the only way out. Some publishers still seem to handle everything in terms of battles, and struggling in such a way calls war, not intelligent, wise ad peaceful relationships.
They will advance, some slower than others. Which does not mean that end-users as well must be responsible. So I have not taken my part on the present facts by demagogy but by conviction on the basis of evidence. Here in France we’re in a law project called Hadopy, and I happen to defend that project, therefor I am far from being an enlightened excited “liberal”, but I aim to stay neutral and therefor free in my positions. And free I am by defending rarst.net against InterfaceLIFT, here and now.
@Transcontinental
Yep, flexibility is something that humans and businesses often lack. Nothing bad about that in general but in relatively dynamic online environment it can lead to decision that are way too… conservative.
Thank you for you support and it is excellent that it comes from careful evaluation of facts. The way it should always be.
[...] am big fan of Yahoo Pipes (when they are not silently deleting code of mine on bogus copyright complaints :) Anyway for all benefits of using Pipes there is one notably lacking area – scraping data of [...]