Plagiarism Today has a long independent analysis of the BlogBurst service, and what their contract means for bloggers willing to give up content forever for a possibility of being displayed on newspaper websites.
From the conclusions:
Most bloggers will likely find that Blogburst’s terms are just too extreme. Anyone attempting to blog for profit or other kinds of personal gain will almost certainly want to shy away. Despite that, others, including those trying to raise awareness or are blogging under very loose licenses, might find Blogburst userful.
Either way, it’s important to know exactly what one is getting into when delving into such a service and bloggers should take the time to read the agreement carefully and not get too caught up in the excitement about possibly being included in the Washington Post.
Remember, content is the reason we create and read sites. If we don’t treat it with care, our whole reason for participating in the Internet might just disappear.
Read the whole thing…
Flashbacks:
They Own the Aggregator, Now (They Think) They Own the Content
Beware BlogBurst: A “Derivative Work” Decoy; Nation’s Main Newspapers Continue to Steal Bloggers’ Bandwidth (part 2)
BlogBurst Outrage: Broken Promises; Nation’s Newspapers Continue Stealing Bandwidth (part 3)
Major Newspapers Hotlink Images from Unsuspecting Companies; Drain Bandwidth and Server Resources Without Permission
Beware BlogBurst: The Liars Return (part 5.)
The list of web sites across the blogosphere that raised a concern about BlogBurst is here…