bizarre news site

While searching for news about citibike, I stumbled upon this weird site. It seems that the articles are translations or rewordings of other articles. Perhaps it uses a synonym replacement algorithm. Long Island City was replaced with Lengthy Island Town. The article makes no sense. Was it translated to Japanese and back into English?

I suppose one could set up a site like this, reap in some money from the ads, and just let it run. If the ads pay for just being displayed, the money is already rolling in. Not that anyone would check the site for news, but hey, I stumbled on it through a search.

http://www.suffieldtimes.com/business/citi-bike-location-of-over-100-new-stations-unveiled/8225/

That's exactly what it is.

valley_girl said:
That's exactly what it is.

Do you know anything more of sites of this type? How much does it cost to set up, and what are the benefits to the owner? I'm almost tempted to do the same, because it isn't exactly fraud. Well, maybe it is.

I would be surprised if this were not copyright infringement.

tom said:
I would be surprised if this were not copyright infringement.

Copyright covers the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. Does replacing the words not constitute a different expression? It seems like a grey area. I really don't know.

I'm not a copyright lawyer, but I have dealt with some of these issues. There is a common four-part test that is applied for whether a given work is or isn't "fair use". You can read about them here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use.

The first factor is regarding whether the use in question helps fulfill
the intention of copyright law to stimulate creativity for the
enrichment of the general public, or whether it aims to only "supersede
the objects" of the original for reasons of personal profit. To justify
the use as fair, one must demonstrate how it either advances knowledge
or the progress of the arts through the addition of something new. A key
consideration is the extent to which the use is interpreted as transformative, as opposed to merely derivative.

These are definitely for profit, but do not advance knowledge by adding anything new.

#2, Nature of the Work, is a little vague against this instance.

The third factor assesses the quantity or percentage of the original
copyrighted work that has been imported into the new work. In general,
the less that is used in relation to the whole, ex: a few sentences of a
text for a book review, the more likely that the sample will be
considered fair use.

Pretty much 100% of the original article I would guess.

The fourth factor measures the effect that the allegedly infringing use
has had on the copyright owner's ability to exploit his or her original
work. The court not only investigates whether the defendant's specific
use of the work has significantly harmed the copyright owner's market,
but also whether such uses in general, if widespread, would harm the
potential market of the original.

It seems obvious that these would definitely harm the copyright owner's market, by "stealing" add displays and clicks, and therefore market share, that ought to have gone to the original creator.

There's obviously a lot more to it, but it wouldn't be much fun to try and defend this site in court.

Fair enough. Finding the site owner might prove to be a challenge.

Actually, it is the modern version of a Numbers Station.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station

max_weisenfeld said:
Actually, it is the modern version of a Numbers Station.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station

How do you figure? These web sites are decoys. Numbers stations transmitted messages in code to particular intended recipients.

Are you sure?

Tom_Reingold said:

valley_girl said:
That's exactly what it is.

Do you know anything more of sites of this type? How much does it cost to set up, and what are the benefits to the owner? I'm almost tempted to do the same, because it isn't exactly fraud. Well, maybe it is.

Yes, they're all over the place, especially on how-to searches. The benefit is ads, on popular search terms.