Directory listing

[JBanczak]

Some good information on copywriting vs. plagiarism fro Plagiarism Detector.com.
[h1]Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement: Is Copying Illegal?[/h1]You've heard some teachers say that it's always wrong to copy someone else's work. They ruthlessly check your papers for plagiarism. Other teachers say that it's all right as long as you give credit to the original author. Who's right?
To answer this question, we have to think about the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement. Take a look at these definitions from The Council Chronicle for English teachers:
Plagiarism is using someone else's work without giving proper credit - a failure to cite adequately.
Copyright infringement is using someone else's creative work, which can include a song, a video, a movie clip, a piece of visual art, a photograph, and other creative works, without authorization or compensation, if compensation is appropriate.
Schools enforce plagiarism.
The courts enforce copyright infringement. 1 What? Did I just copy those definitions from their Web site? As a matter of fact, I did. This is not an example of plagiarism, since I gave credit to the author of the definitions. (See the References section at the bottom of this article.) It's not copyright infringement, either, since my short quote is allowed by the "fair use" exemption in copyright law.
[h2]Plagiarism[/h2]Plagiarism is using someone else's work without giving proper credit. Schools deal with plagiarism by giving the cheaters academic consequences. Most teachers will give F grades for plagiarized work, and some will do more. When I was a teaching assistant at Stanford University, some students were suspended for copying answers during a test.
Plagiarism doesn't have to include copyright infringement. For example, William Shakespeare's plays are not copyrighted because they're too old. Even though it would technically be legal to copy from one of those plays for an English assignment, it would still be plagiarism if you didn't give credit to Shakespeare. Your teacher may not be able to take you to court over it, but she can certainly give you an F. You might even get suspended or expelled from school. Even though copying one sentence from a Web site is legal according to United States copyright laws, that may still count as plagiarism in your teacher's book.
[h2]Copyright Infringement[/h2]Copyright infringement is using someone else's work without getting that person's permission. The author of any original work, including books, essays, Web pages, songs, pictures, and videos, automatically gets the copyright to that work, even if she doesn't label it with the copyright symbol and her name. The work must be fixed in tangible form, which means it must be stored on something physical, such as paper, canvas, a CD, or a hard disk. This makes college students copyright owners, since they've already written many original works for school.
The owner of a copyright gets to decide who can legally make copies of that work. It is illegal to copy large sections of someone else's copyrighted work without permission, even if you give the original author credit. Imagine someone making copies of the movie Finding Nemo without asking for permission. He sure won't get away with it just by giving the authors credit on the DVD cover!
Fortunately, a fair use exemption allows you to legally copy small amounts of someone else's work. Just make sure to give the author credit so you won't be guilty of plagiarism!
The courts assign consequences for copyright infringement. This means someone may come after you with a lawyer if you violate his copyright. Your school can report copyright infringement to people who have the legal power to take you to court. Students have been sued for copyright infringement before.2 In some cases, the court may require you to pay the fees for both your lawyer and the copyright owner's lawyer.
[h2]Is It Okay to Change Someone Else's Words For My Essay?[/h2]Taking a copyrighted work and changing it creates something called a derivative work. Since you made changes to create the derivative work, you share the copyright for it with the copyright owner of the original work. Since you don't own the entire copyright for the derivative work, you must still ask for permission before making copies of it.
Because of this, taking someone else's work and changing some of the words only creates a derivative work and does not give you full ownership of the copyright. Even if no one decides to take you to court over it, your teacher might still decide that you are guilty of plagiarism. Instead of paraphrasing someone else's paper and calling it your own, try learning from other people's work first and then writing your own paper from scratch. Read some of these tips for writing an essay in your own words.
[h2]Conclusion[/h2]Between the consequences for plagiarism and copyright infringement, it's just not worth it to copy other people's work. If you do need to use a few words from another source, take some precautions:

• Put those words in quotation marks or indent them to indicate clearly that they are not your own words.
• Add a footnote to give credit to the original author.
• Keep the length of your quotation down to a few sentences so you won't be guilty of copyright infringement.

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

I will add that it is very gracious of Swirt to allow you as a Directory/Vendor to promote, defend and blab on this innkeeping forum, after you put your shoulder back in from the back patting..

It is not back-patting, I'm applying aloe vera from all the lashings I get here!
.

It is not back-patting, I'm applying aloe vera from all the lashings I get here!

Glad you felt them. This is hurting us more than it is hurting you, as we say to our kids.

 

[YellowSocks]

For what they cost you could for a year membership you could hire a good publicist on a per project basis...

.

I disagree that Press Releases cannot be plagiarized. Show me a time when a professional journalist would take any part of a press release, and print it without attribution. We literally get thousands of reprints per month of our releases, and any professional gives attribution.
If a scientist did a press release of a new medical breakthrough and posted it on his blog - a fellow scientist could not get away with copying it verbatim and calling it his own discovery... It is the same here - we did research on inns, contacted them, got them to give us quotes and additional photos, then released it. Another website cannot claim it as it's own.
We have numerous content partnerships where we let websites post our content - everyone from Expedia, to Vast.com, Away.com, LA times, even Google - we send them every photo/url/review we get - and all of them have a written agreement with us with permission to use it.
If you would like to read more about this exact issue, you can go to the American Press Institute page and see a very well written article on attribution and plagiarism... and it is crystal clear what The Innkeeper did is plagiarism.
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/resources/2006/09/when_does_sloppy_attribution_b/
This is just one more example of why our directory is more expensive. Forget the fact that we drive more traffic, but we actually employ people who need to make a living here to put together original content, in addition to everything else we do. I guess we could just fire all of our employees and copy all the content from our competitors to save some money and lower our prices... but of course they don't have those employees putting this together in the first place - they copy ours - so that really wouldn't work...
.

What's the goal of press release? To generate exposure and pickup, therefore its' entire existence is TO BE PLAGiARIZED.
As I said, it's a bit shady, but it's common. The scientist argument is hogwash, are you joking? A new discovery is not in the realm of freely avaialble information (ie a list of travel ideas), so that doesn't apply.
"and it is crystal clear what The Innkeeper did is plagiarism"
.A directory is not a media outlet, so API really has no say because directories don't have an obligation to have journalistic standards, they are for profit vehicles. That article is about the ethics of plagiarism, not the fair use of press releases.
If the LA Times ran the release verbatim and only mentioned the inns, would you complain? No. You complained because you don't approve of the outlet. Whenever you put a release on the wires, it can be shot through thousands of distribution outlets - some strip the links, some the photos, it could be any part that dissapears and this happens thousands of times per day.
This is a huge waste of my time. It seems every time anyone disagrees with you, even on points that are debatable like fair use of news releases, you get nasty.
Plus it's pretty clear as your last paragraph shows you could care less about the ethics of this,or media ethics in general, you only care about propping up your business and slamming everyone elses.
.

Thanks Paul and Catlady - I agree, that credit is all that is due here. But this is not the first time this happened, it just happens to be the latest.
Ivy - I believe you have come up with your own definition and standards on what you feel is right here. I posted the link to the American Press Institue so you could see what a professional organization says about this.
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/resources/2006/09/when_does_sloppy_attribution_b/.
Here is the definition from Wikipedia dealing directly with online plagiarism:
Online plagiarism:
>>>Since it is very easy to steal content from the web by simply copying and pasting, the problem of online plagiarism is growing.[citation needed] This phenomenon, also known as content scraping, is affecting both established sites [3] and blogs [4].
Free online tools are becoming available to help identify plagiarism [5], and there is a range of approaches that attempt to limit online copying, such as disabling right clicking and placing warning banners regarding copyrights on web pages. Instances of plagiarism that involve copyright violation may be addressed by the rightful content owners sending a DMCA removal notice to the offending site-owner, or to the ISP that is hosting the offending site.
It is important to reiterate that plagiarism is not the mere copying of text, but the presentation of another's ideas as one's own, regardless of the specific words or constructs used to express that idea. In contrast, many so-called plagiarism detection services can only detect blatant word-for-word copies of text.<<<
I'm not sure how you could take my post to mean that I do not care about ethics? You do not see our business plagiarising others out there. Quite the contrary - we have a team of people who do nothing but generate original content for the industry. I'm not sure how it becomes unethical to think that other websites wouldn't steal it and claim it as their own. I understand that there are innkeepers on this forum who are not happy that we have changed our gift card pricing, or that we raised our prices this year for listings - but I do not believe that is unethical. We have always been very upfront with our members and the industry about exactly what we do with our website.
.

. . . Here is the definition from Wikipedia dealing directly with online plagiarism:
Online plagiarism:
>>>Since it is very easy to steal content from the web by simply copying and pasting, the problem of online plagiarism is growing.[citation needed] This phenomenon, also known as content scraping, is affecting both established sites [3] and blogs [4]. . . .

This argument is specious. BedandBreakfast.com put the information out there as a PRESS RELEASE, not as a blog entry, an article, or any other copyrighted piece. It was clearly identified as a press release at the beginning and the end of the information, which completely changes the "rules of engagement", as it were. The information was handled as you should have expected, since you released it. Somebody picked it up and and provided another avenue of dissemination. Please stop acting like a petulant child because you were not given the credit for gathering the information in the first place. If it is going to upset you so much, stop issuing press releases, and only post copyrighted articles.
Gotta say, dude, that as an aspiring, the adversarial relationship you seem so intent on having with your membership is not filling me with a lot warm fuzzies.
.

Maybe I'm completely in left field, but I can't find anything on the web, anywhere from any professional source that says press releases can be copied without giving credit or that it is a legitimate and ethical practice. If it is out there, I'd love to see it. That is why I posted those two links.
As far as having an adversarial relationship with innkeepers - it is always a fine line on forums because often times things are taken personally. We participate in these forums and are willing to have an open debate with innkeepers. No other directories do this. We often debate whether or not we should, as we often feel that things are taken the wrong way. This thread is a prime example - we feel wronged that another site is plagiarising us, it is clear that a lot of innkeepers agree, and some do not.
Because of this then, our ethics get called into question, which quite frankly I do not feel is fair. Whether you agree with our pricing or not, we eat, sleep and breath this industry, and are passionate about getting more consumers into the B&B beds. I am on a one week vacation right now, and I've spent all day working. This is not uncommon for us.
I would expect on a forum that we are not always going to agree on everything - but I believe the ultimate result of a forum is to see all opinions expressed and try and get to the truth of an issue - and I believe that it only works with honest, factual communication.
.

As far as having an adversarial relationship with innkeepers - it is always a fine line on forums because often times things are taken personally. We participate in these forums and are willing to have an open debate with innkeepers. No other directories do this.

Don't be so sure.
There's at least one other directory who posts here often (anonymously), as well as other B&B non-innkeeper professionals such as Jay Karan (sp?) from PAII (as himself) and others.
It's comments like this one that have folks accusing you of looking for pats on the back.
I agree, though, you've been getting a lashing...
I'll continue pointing out inaccuracies, errors, and poor logic in a post (yours or anyone else's). I do give you credit for coming back for more in spite of it.
=)
Kk.

 

[kris_pip]

Some good information on copywriting vs. plagiarism fro Plagiarism Detector.com.
[h1]Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement: Is Copying Illegal?[/h1]You've heard some teachers say that it's always wrong to copy someone else's work. They ruthlessly check your papers for plagiarism. Other teachers say that it's all right as long as you give credit to the original author. Who's right?
To answer this question, we have to think about the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement. Take a look at these definitions from The Council Chronicle for English teachers:
Plagiarism is using someone else's work without giving proper credit - a failure to cite adequately.
Copyright infringement is using someone else's creative work, which can include a song, a video, a movie clip, a piece of visual art, a photograph, and other creative works, without authorization or compensation, if compensation is appropriate.
Schools enforce plagiarism.
The courts enforce copyright infringement. 1 What? Did I just copy those definitions from their Web site? As a matter of fact, I did. This is not an example of plagiarism, since I gave credit to the author of the definitions. (See the References section at the bottom of this article.) It's not copyright infringement, either, since my short quote is allowed by the "fair use" exemption in copyright law.
[h2]Plagiarism[/h2]Plagiarism is using someone else's work without giving proper credit. Schools deal with plagiarism by giving the cheaters academic consequences. Most teachers will give F grades for plagiarized work, and some will do more. When I was a teaching assistant at Stanford University, some students were suspended for copying answers during a test.
Plagiarism doesn't have to include copyright infringement. For example, William Shakespeare's plays are not copyrighted because they're too old. Even though it would technically be legal to copy from one of those plays for an English assignment, it would still be plagiarism if you didn't give credit to Shakespeare. Your teacher may not be able to take you to court over it, but she can certainly give you an F. You might even get suspended or expelled from school. Even though copying one sentence from a Web site is legal according to United States copyright laws, that may still count as plagiarism in your teacher's book.
[h2]Copyright Infringement[/h2]Copyright infringement is using someone else's work without getting that person's permission. The author of any original work, including books, essays, Web pages, songs, pictures, and videos, automatically gets the copyright to that work, even if she doesn't label it with the copyright symbol and her name. The work must be fixed in tangible form, which means it must be stored on something physical, such as paper, canvas, a CD, or a hard disk. This makes college students copyright owners, since they've already written many original works for school.
The owner of a copyright gets to decide who can legally make copies of that work. It is illegal to copy large sections of someone else's copyrighted work without permission, even if you give the original author credit. Imagine someone making copies of the movie Finding Nemo without asking for permission. He sure won't get away with it just by giving the authors credit on the DVD cover!
Fortunately, a fair use exemption allows you to legally copy small amounts of someone else's work. Just make sure to give the author credit so you won't be guilty of plagiarism!
The courts assign consequences for copyright infringement. This means someone may come after you with a lawyer if you violate his copyright. Your school can report copyright infringement to people who have the legal power to take you to court. Students have been sued for copyright infringement before.2 In some cases, the court may require you to pay the fees for both your lawyer and the copyright owner's lawyer.
[h2]Is It Okay to Change Someone Else's Words For My Essay?[/h2]Taking a copyrighted work and changing it creates something called a derivative work. Since you made changes to create the derivative work, you share the copyright for it with the copyright owner of the original work. Since you don't own the entire copyright for the derivative work, you must still ask for permission before making copies of it.
Because of this, taking someone else's work and changing some of the words only creates a derivative work and does not give you full ownership of the copyright. Even if no one decides to take you to court over it, your teacher might still decide that you are guilty of plagiarism. Instead of paraphrasing someone else's paper and calling it your own, try learning from other people's work first and then writing your own paper from scratch. Read some of these tips for writing an essay in your own words.
[h2]Conclusion[/h2]Between the consequences for plagiarism and copyright infringement, it's just not worth it to copy other people's work. If you do need to use a few words from another source, take some precautions:

• Put those words in quotation marks or indent them to indicate clearly that they are not your own words.
• Add a footnote to give credit to the original author.
• Keep the length of your quotation down to a few sentences so you won't be guilty of copyright infringement.

.

Since I live/breathe/eat copyright (I currently do this for a living, but am "aspiring" not to!), I was focusing on what is legally permissible. I am not aware of any cause of action for "plagiarism." When you copy something that has entered the public domain (e.g., Shakespeare, as in the article above), you might get in trouble with your professor, but you have not broken the law. Since plagiarism is not a legal concept, I'm not sure whether copying something which you have characterized as a press release could be considered plagiarism. I guess it's just a matter of opinion. But applying the same logic as I would in a copyright case, I would say no plagiarism since you gave permission.

 

[JBanczak]

For what they cost you could for a year membership you could hire a good publicist on a per project basis...

.

I disagree that Press Releases cannot be plagiarized. Show me a time when a professional journalist would take any part of a press release, and print it without attribution. We literally get thousands of reprints per month of our releases, and any professional gives attribution.
If a scientist did a press release of a new medical breakthrough and posted it on his blog - a fellow scientist could not get away with copying it verbatim and calling it his own discovery... It is the same here - we did research on inns, contacted them, got them to give us quotes and additional photos, then released it. Another website cannot claim it as it's own.
We have numerous content partnerships where we let websites post our content - everyone from Expedia, to Vast.com, Away.com, LA times, even Google - we send them every photo/url/review we get - and all of them have a written agreement with us with permission to use it.
If you would like to read more about this exact issue, you can go to the American Press Institute page and see a very well written article on attribution and plagiarism... and it is crystal clear what The Innkeeper did is plagiarism.
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/resources/2006/09/when_does_sloppy_attribution_b/
This is just one more example of why our directory is more expensive. Forget the fact that we drive more traffic, but we actually employ people who need to make a living here to put together original content, in addition to everything else we do. I guess we could just fire all of our employees and copy all the content from our competitors to save some money and lower our prices... but of course they don't have those employees putting this together in the first place - they copy ours - so that really wouldn't work...
.

What's the goal of press release? To generate exposure and pickup, therefore its' entire existence is TO BE PLAGiARIZED.
As I said, it's a bit shady, but it's common. The scientist argument is hogwash, are you joking? A new discovery is not in the realm of freely avaialble information (ie a list of travel ideas), so that doesn't apply.
"and it is crystal clear what The Innkeeper did is plagiarism"
.A directory is not a media outlet, so API really has no say because directories don't have an obligation to have journalistic standards, they are for profit vehicles. That article is about the ethics of plagiarism, not the fair use of press releases.
If the LA Times ran the release verbatim and only mentioned the inns, would you complain? No. You complained because you don't approve of the outlet. Whenever you put a release on the wires, it can be shot through thousands of distribution outlets - some strip the links, some the photos, it could be any part that dissapears and this happens thousands of times per day.
This is a huge waste of my time. It seems every time anyone disagrees with you, even on points that are debatable like fair use of news releases, you get nasty.
Plus it's pretty clear as your last paragraph shows you could care less about the ethics of this,or media ethics in general, you only care about propping up your business and slamming everyone elses.
.

Thanks Paul and Catlady - I agree, that credit is all that is due here. But this is not the first time this happened, it just happens to be the latest.
Ivy - I believe you have come up with your own definition and standards on what you feel is right here. I posted the link to the American Press Institue so you could see what a professional organization says about this.
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/resources/2006/09/when_does_sloppy_attribution_b/.
Here is the definition from Wikipedia dealing directly with online plagiarism:
Online plagiarism:
>>>Since it is very easy to steal content from the web by simply copying and pasting, the problem of online plagiarism is growing.[citation needed] This phenomenon, also known as content scraping, is affecting both established sites [3] and blogs [4].
Free online tools are becoming available to help identify plagiarism [5], and there is a range of approaches that attempt to limit online copying, such as disabling right clicking and placing warning banners regarding copyrights on web pages. Instances of plagiarism that involve copyright violation may be addressed by the rightful content owners sending a DMCA removal notice to the offending site-owner, or to the ISP that is hosting the offending site.
It is important to reiterate that plagiarism is not the mere copying of text, but the presentation of another's ideas as one's own, regardless of the specific words or constructs used to express that idea. In contrast, many so-called plagiarism detection services can only detect blatant word-for-word copies of text.<<<
I'm not sure how you could take my post to mean that I do not care about ethics? You do not see our business plagiarising others out there. Quite the contrary - we have a team of people who do nothing but generate original content for the industry. I'm not sure how it becomes unethical to think that other websites wouldn't steal it and claim it as their own. I understand that there are innkeepers on this forum who are not happy that we have changed our gift card pricing, or that we raised our prices this year for listings - but I do not believe that is unethical. We have always been very upfront with our members and the industry about exactly what we do with our website.
.

. . . Here is the definition from Wikipedia dealing directly with online plagiarism:
Online plagiarism:
>>>Since it is very easy to steal content from the web by simply copying and pasting, the problem of online plagiarism is growing.[citation needed] This phenomenon, also known as content scraping, is affecting both established sites [3] and blogs [4]. . . .

This argument is specious. BedandBreakfast.com put the information out there as a PRESS RELEASE, not as a blog entry, an article, or any other copyrighted piece. It was clearly identified as a press release at the beginning and the end of the information, which completely changes the "rules of engagement", as it were. The information was handled as you should have expected, since you released it. Somebody picked it up and and provided another avenue of dissemination. Please stop acting like a petulant child because you were not given the credit for gathering the information in the first place. If it is going to upset you so much, stop issuing press releases, and only post copyrighted articles.
Gotta say, dude, that as an aspiring, the adversarial relationship you seem so intent on having with your membership is not filling me with a lot warm fuzzies.
.

Maybe I'm completely in left field, but I can't find anything on the web, anywhere from any professional source that says press releases can be copied without giving credit or that it is a legitimate and ethical practice. If it is out there, I'd love to see it. That is why I posted those two links.
As far as having an adversarial relationship with innkeepers - it is always a fine line on forums because often times things are taken personally. We participate in these forums and are willing to have an open debate with innkeepers. No other directories do this. We often debate whether or not we should, as we often feel that things are taken the wrong way. This thread is a prime example - we feel wronged that another site is plagiarising us, it is clear that a lot of innkeepers agree, and some do not.
Because of this then, our ethics get called into question, which quite frankly I do not feel is fair. Whether you agree with our pricing or not, we eat, sleep and breath this industry, and are passionate about getting more consumers into the B&B beds. I am on a one week vacation right now, and I've spent all day working. This is not uncommon for us.
I would expect on a forum that we are not always going to agree on everything - but I believe the ultimate result of a forum is to see all opinions expressed and try and get to the truth of an issue - and I believe that it only works with honest, factual communication.
.

As far as having an adversarial relationship with innkeepers - it is always a fine line on forums because often times things are taken personally. We participate in these forums and are willing to have an open debate with innkeepers. No other directories do this.

Don't be so sure.
There's at least one other directory who posts here often (anonymously), as well as other B&B non-innkeeper professionals such as Jay Karan (sp?) from PAII (as himself) and others.
It's comments like this one that have folks accusing you of looking for pats on the back.
I agree, though, you've been getting a lashing...
I'll continue pointing out inaccuracies, errors, and poor logic in a post (yours or anyone else's). I do give you credit for coming back for more in spite of it.
=)
Kk.
.

I'm not sure how I could know that others are posting anonymously, but I really had no idea that was the case. I haven't seen anyone publicly posting though, and it would seem strange to me to post without people having full information that I am posting and I work for a directory. I can't imagine what the thoughts would be if I didn't give that full disclosure.
Would people rather have me join under a different ID so they didn't know I was from Bedandbreakfast.com?

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

For what they cost you could for a year membership you could hire a good publicist on a per project basis...

.

I disagree that Press Releases cannot be plagiarized. Show me a time when a professional journalist would take any part of a press release, and print it without attribution. We literally get thousands of reprints per month of our releases, and any professional gives attribution.
If a scientist did a press release of a new medical breakthrough and posted it on his blog - a fellow scientist could not get away with copying it verbatim and calling it his own discovery... It is the same here - we did research on inns, contacted them, got them to give us quotes and additional photos, then released it. Another website cannot claim it as it's own.
We have numerous content partnerships where we let websites post our content - everyone from Expedia, to Vast.com, Away.com, LA times, even Google - we send them every photo/url/review we get - and all of them have a written agreement with us with permission to use it.
If you would like to read more about this exact issue, you can go to the American Press Institute page and see a very well written article on attribution and plagiarism... and it is crystal clear what The Innkeeper did is plagiarism.
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/resources/2006/09/when_does_sloppy_attribution_b/
This is just one more example of why our directory is more expensive. Forget the fact that we drive more traffic, but we actually employ people who need to make a living here to put together original content, in addition to everything else we do. I guess we could just fire all of our employees and copy all the content from our competitors to save some money and lower our prices... but of course they don't have those employees putting this together in the first place - they copy ours - so that really wouldn't work...
.

What's the goal of press release? To generate exposure and pickup, therefore its' entire existence is TO BE PLAGiARIZED.
As I said, it's a bit shady, but it's common. The scientist argument is hogwash, are you joking? A new discovery is not in the realm of freely avaialble information (ie a list of travel ideas), so that doesn't apply.
"and it is crystal clear what The Innkeeper did is plagiarism"
.A directory is not a media outlet, so API really has no say because directories don't have an obligation to have journalistic standards, they are for profit vehicles. That article is about the ethics of plagiarism, not the fair use of press releases.
If the LA Times ran the release verbatim and only mentioned the inns, would you complain? No. You complained because you don't approve of the outlet. Whenever you put a release on the wires, it can be shot through thousands of distribution outlets - some strip the links, some the photos, it could be any part that dissapears and this happens thousands of times per day.
This is a huge waste of my time. It seems every time anyone disagrees with you, even on points that are debatable like fair use of news releases, you get nasty.
Plus it's pretty clear as your last paragraph shows you could care less about the ethics of this,or media ethics in general, you only care about propping up your business and slamming everyone elses.
.

Thanks Paul and Catlady - I agree, that credit is all that is due here. But this is not the first time this happened, it just happens to be the latest.
Ivy - I believe you have come up with your own definition and standards on what you feel is right here. I posted the link to the American Press Institue so you could see what a professional organization says about this.
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/resources/2006/09/when_does_sloppy_attribution_b/.
Here is the definition from Wikipedia dealing directly with online plagiarism:
Online plagiarism:
>>>Since it is very easy to steal content from the web by simply copying and pasting, the problem of online plagiarism is growing.[citation needed] This phenomenon, also known as content scraping, is affecting both established sites [3] and blogs [4].
Free online tools are becoming available to help identify plagiarism [5], and there is a range of approaches that attempt to limit online copying, such as disabling right clicking and placing warning banners regarding copyrights on web pages. Instances of plagiarism that involve copyright violation may be addressed by the rightful content owners sending a DMCA removal notice to the offending site-owner, or to the ISP that is hosting the offending site.
It is important to reiterate that plagiarism is not the mere copying of text, but the presentation of another's ideas as one's own, regardless of the specific words or constructs used to express that idea. In contrast, many so-called plagiarism detection services can only detect blatant word-for-word copies of text.<<<
I'm not sure how you could take my post to mean that I do not care about ethics? You do not see our business plagiarising others out there. Quite the contrary - we have a team of people who do nothing but generate original content for the industry. I'm not sure how it becomes unethical to think that other websites wouldn't steal it and claim it as their own. I understand that there are innkeepers on this forum who are not happy that we have changed our gift card pricing, or that we raised our prices this year for listings - but I do not believe that is unethical. We have always been very upfront with our members and the industry about exactly what we do with our website.
.

. . . Here is the definition from Wikipedia dealing directly with online plagiarism:
Online plagiarism:
>>>Since it is very easy to steal content from the web by simply copying and pasting, the problem of online plagiarism is growing.[citation needed] This phenomenon, also known as content scraping, is affecting both established sites [3] and blogs [4]. . . .

This argument is specious. BedandBreakfast.com put the information out there as a PRESS RELEASE, not as a blog entry, an article, or any other copyrighted piece. It was clearly identified as a press release at the beginning and the end of the information, which completely changes the "rules of engagement", as it were. The information was handled as you should have expected, since you released it. Somebody picked it up and and provided another avenue of dissemination. Please stop acting like a petulant child because you were not given the credit for gathering the information in the first place. If it is going to upset you so much, stop issuing press releases, and only post copyrighted articles.
Gotta say, dude, that as an aspiring, the adversarial relationship you seem so intent on having with your membership is not filling me with a lot warm fuzzies.
.

Maybe I'm completely in left field, but I can't find anything on the web, anywhere from any professional source that says press releases can be copied without giving credit or that it is a legitimate and ethical practice. If it is out there, I'd love to see it. That is why I posted those two links.
As far as having an adversarial relationship with innkeepers - it is always a fine line on forums because often times things are taken personally. We participate in these forums and are willing to have an open debate with innkeepers. No other directories do this. We often debate whether or not we should, as we often feel that things are taken the wrong way. This thread is a prime example - we feel wronged that another site is plagiarising us, it is clear that a lot of innkeepers agree, and some do not.
Because of this then, our ethics get called into question, which quite frankly I do not feel is fair. Whether you agree with our pricing or not, we eat, sleep and breath this industry, and are passionate about getting more consumers into the B&B beds. I am on a one week vacation right now, and I've spent all day working. This is not uncommon for us.
I would expect on a forum that we are not always going to agree on everything - but I believe the ultimate result of a forum is to see all opinions expressed and try and get to the truth of an issue - and I believe that it only works with honest, factual communication.
.

As far as having an adversarial relationship with innkeepers - it is always a fine line on forums because often times things are taken personally. We participate in these forums and are willing to have an open debate with innkeepers. No other directories do this.

Don't be so sure.
There's at least one other directory who posts here often (anonymously), as well as other B&B non-innkeeper professionals such as Jay Karan (sp?) from PAII (as himself) and others.
It's comments like this one that have folks accusing you of looking for pats on the back.
I agree, though, you've been getting a lashing...
I'll continue pointing out inaccuracies, errors, and poor logic in a post (yours or anyone else's). I do give you credit for coming back for more in spite of it.
=)
Kk.
.

I'm not sure how I could know that others are posting anonymously, but I really had no idea that was the case. I haven't seen anyone publicly posting though, and it would seem strange to me to post without people having full information that I am posting and I work for a directory. I can't imagine what the thoughts would be if I didn't give that full disclosure.
Would people rather have me join under a different ID so they didn't know I was from Bedandbreakfast.com?
.

I'm not sure how I could know that others are posting anonymously, but I really had no idea that was the case. I haven't seen anyone publicly posting though, and it would seem strange to me to post without people having full information that I am posting and I work for a directory. I can't imagine what the thoughts would be if I didn't give that full disclosure.
Would people rather have me join under a different ID so they didn't know I was from Bedandbreakfast.com?

I don't think that was to be public information. But since it has been spilled, they are here and DO NOT jump up and down and all around defending their directory, they never MENTION their directory. If this came up on their directory, they would be respectful in answering our woes.

 

[Innlover]

Since we are on this subject... here is a post from a PAII forum that you might want to see.
A few months back, there was a thread about other websites stealing content, watermarking images in hopes that they would stop, and the positives and negatives of doing so.
Well – it hasn’t stopped, and in fact has gone to a new level that I felt warranted a posting.
Sandy and Marti here at BedandBreakfast.com came up with a great Halloween press release, featuring a handful of inns. You can see it here:
http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/about/press.aspx?year=2008&article=08092008
A website called “The Innkeeper” at www.theinnkeeper.com literally copied the press release, word-for-word, photos and all, and posted it on their website - as their own with no credit to the authors or original website. You can see their page here:
http://www.theinnkeeper.com/blog/?p=83.
They are literally serving the images directly from our server – if you look at the sources on the photo files – it is from BedandBreakfast.com. Kudos to Sandy and Marti – you know what they say about imitation and flattery. Although this really is plagiarism.
Shame on “The Innkeeper” for this highly unethical and illegal action. If I were them I’d be embarassed to have to stoop to such measures for site content, and now it will likely cost us money to get them to stop doing it. If anyone would like to see screen shots along with the image sources, I’m happy to email them out.
You'll notice that we have directed any request from www.theinnkeeper.com for image serving from their blogs - to one single image on our website.... the BB.com logo. After all, turn-about is fair play..

They are literally serving the images directly from our server – if you look at the sources on the photo files – it is from BedandBreakfast.com. Kudos to Sandy and Marti – you know what they say about imitation and flattery. Although this really is plagiarism.
Shame on “The Innkeeper” for this highly unethical and illegal action. If I were them I’d be embarassed to have to stoop to such measures for site content, and now it will likely cost us money to get them to stop doing it. If anyone would like to see screen shots along with the image sources, I’m happy to email them out.
You'll notice that we have directed any request from www.theinnkeeper.com for image serving from their blogs - to one single image on our website.... the BB.com logo. After all, turn-about is fair play.

Rather than argue about plagiarism in regards to press releases (though I do have an opinion) I question who is really upset about this. Since Sandy and Marti seemed gracious about it, according to you, then are you just posturing? Have you or anyone at your company bothered to talk to anyone at theinnkeeper.com to express your feelings? It seems that should have been done first and is more effective in building bridges than turn-about is in fair-play. Perhaps they are truly ignorant of your interpretation.

 

[Innlover]

Okay, that was wierd. There was a hiccup and now the comments are all out of whack and half of John's got deleted and mine tacked onto his. Sorry! I have no idea what just happened. I was just trying to reply like everyone else.

 

[swirt]

Since we are on this subject... here is a post from a PAII forum that you might want to see.
A few months back, there was a thread about other websites stealing content, watermarking images in hopes that they would stop, and the positives and negatives of doing so.
Well – it hasn’t stopped, and in fact has gone to a new level that I felt warranted a posting.
Sandy and Marti here at BedandBreakfast.com came up with a great Halloween press release, featuring a handful of inns. You can see it here:
http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/about/press.aspx?year=2008&article=08092008
A website called “The Innkeeper” at www.theinnkeeper.com literally copied the press release, word-for-word, photos and all, and posted it on their website - as their own with no credit to the authors or original website. You can see their page here:
http://www.theinnkeeper.com/blog/?p=83.
They are literally serving the images directly from our server – if you look at the sources on the photo files – it is from BedandBreakfast.com. Kudos to Sandy and Marti – you know what they say about imitation and flattery. Although this really is plagiarism.
Shame on “The Innkeeper” for this highly unethical and illegal action. If I were them I’d be embarassed to have to stoop to such measures for site content, and now it will likely cost us money to get them to stop doing it. If anyone would like to see screen shots along with the image sources, I’m happy to email them out.
You'll notice that we have directed any request from www.theinnkeeper.com for image serving from their blogs - to one single image on our website.... the BB.com logo. After all, turn-about is fair play..

They are literally serving the images directly from our server – if you look at the sources on the photo files – it is from BedandBreakfast.com. Kudos to Sandy and Marti – you know what they say about imitation and flattery. Although this really is plagiarism.
Shame on “The Innkeeper” for this highly unethical and illegal action. If I were them I’d be embarassed to have to stoop to such measures for site content, and now it will likely cost us money to get them to stop doing it. If anyone would like to see screen shots along with the image sources, I’m happy to email them out.
You'll notice that we have directed any request from www.theinnkeeper.com for image serving from their blogs - to one single image on our website.... the BB.com logo. After all, turn-about is fair play.

Rather than argue about plagiarism in regards to press releases (though I do have an opinion) I question who is really upset about this. Since Sandy and Marti seemed gracious about it, according to you, then are you just posturing? Have you or anyone at your company bothered to talk to anyone at theinnkeeper.com to express your feelings? It seems that should have been done first and is more effective in building bridges than turn-about is in fair-play. Perhaps they are truly ignorant of your interpretation.
.

Given that the reviews in the other blog post for the same day (Sept 24th) that look like "review soup" are scraped from a variety of locations, like Fodors.com I am pretty sure they know what they are doing is on the shady side.
This statement in the "acceptable use" policy indicates to me that they know what they are doing

Information on TheInnkeeper,com may only be spidered or otherwise gathered by index companies giving proper links and/or credit to TheInnkeeper,com

 

[Morticia]

Since we are on this subject... here is a post from a PAII forum that you might want to see.
A few months back, there was a thread about other websites stealing content, watermarking images in hopes that they would stop, and the positives and negatives of doing so.
Well – it hasn’t stopped, and in fact has gone to a new level that I felt warranted a posting.
Sandy and Marti here at BedandBreakfast.com came up with a great Halloween press release, featuring a handful of inns. You can see it here:
http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/about/press.aspx?year=2008&article=08092008
A website called “The Innkeeper” at www.theinnkeeper.com literally copied the press release, word-for-word, photos and all, and posted it on their website - as their own with no credit to the authors or original website. You can see their page here:
http://www.theinnkeeper.com/blog/?p=83.
They are literally serving the images directly from our server – if you look at the sources on the photo files – it is from BedandBreakfast.com. Kudos to Sandy and Marti – you know what they say about imitation and flattery. Although this really is plagiarism.
Shame on “The Innkeeper” for this highly unethical and illegal action. If I were them I’d be embarassed to have to stoop to such measures for site content, and now it will likely cost us money to get them to stop doing it. If anyone would like to see screen shots along with the image sources, I’m happy to email them out.
You'll notice that we have directed any request from www.theinnkeeper.com for image serving from their blogs - to one single image on our website.... the BB.com logo. After all, turn-about is fair play..

They are literally serving the images directly from our server – if you look at the sources on the photo files – it is from BedandBreakfast.com. Kudos to Sandy and Marti – you know what they say about imitation and flattery. Although this really is plagiarism.
Shame on “The Innkeeper” for this highly unethical and illegal action. If I were them I’d be embarassed to have to stoop to such measures for site content, and now it will likely cost us money to get them to stop doing it. If anyone would like to see screen shots along with the image sources, I’m happy to email them out.
You'll notice that we have directed any request from www.theinnkeeper.com for image serving from their blogs - to one single image on our website.... the BB.com logo. After all, turn-about is fair play.

Rather than argue about plagiarism in regards to press releases (though I do have an opinion) I question who is really upset about this. Since Sandy and Marti seemed gracious about it, according to you, then are you just posturing? Have you or anyone at your company bothered to talk to anyone at theinnkeeper.com to express your feelings? It seems that should have been done first and is more effective in building bridges than turn-about is in fair-play. Perhaps they are truly ignorant of your interpretation.
.

Given that the reviews in the other blog post for the same day (Sept 24th) that look like "review soup" are scraped from a variety of locations, like Fodors.com I am pretty sure they know what they are doing is on the shady side.
This statement in the "acceptable use" policy indicates to me that they know what they are doing

Information on TheInnkeeper,com may only be spidered or otherwise gathered by index companies giving proper links and/or credit to TheInnkeeper,com

.

Given that the reviews in the other blog post for the same day (Sept 24th) that look like "review soup" are scraped from a variety of locations, like Fodors.com I am pretty sure they know what they are doing is on the shady side.
This statement in the "acceptable use" policy indicates to me that they know what they are doing

Information on TheInnkeeper,com may only be spidered or otherwise gathered by index companies giving proper links and/or credit to TheInnkeeper,com

I've avoided this topic but this is saying that they want credit given and nothing taken from their site when they gleefully lift info from wherever? The dogs.

 

[swirt]

Okay, that was wierd. There was a hiccup and now the comments are all out of whack and half of John's got deleted and mine tacked onto his. Sorry! I have no idea what just happened. I was just trying to reply like everyone else..

Hi Innlover,
Welcome to Innspiring.
Sounds like you may have accidentally altered your comment preferences at the bottom of the page. The preferences control the way comments are sorted and displayed. You may have to try a few variations to arrive at the style that makes the most sense to you.

 

[SandySoule]

Hi guys,

I’ve been offline because of a religious holiday, but wanted to clarify a few things.

Marti Mayne and I work really hard to generate great publicity for the industry, day in, day out. Last year the media coverage we produced had a value of over $600,000, if it had been purchased as advertising. NO ONE else is doing this for the industry. Marti’s column in the Innkeeper News gives a detailed recap each month, as you can see by clicking here.


The cost of BedandBreakfast.com’s media program is considerable -- both Marti’s time and my own, plus significant additional out-of-pocket costs, but the feeling is that the results justify it. Some competitive directories see what we are doing and copy our ideas – it’s annoying, but there’s nothing we can do about it – you’ve all experienced the same thing when you come up with a great idea or package and another innkeeper just copies it.


What TheInnkeeper.com did was entirely different – I happened to notice it only because of a Google Web Alert, and when I clicked through to read the story, quickly realized that it was what Marti and I had written, WORD FOR WORD. The only change they made was instead of linking to the property listing on BedandBreakfast.com, they linked to listings on their site. They pulled the photos off our site as well, which anyone could see from the photo properties. It’s completely unethical, and not the normal use of a press release. They didn’t use the intro part of the release that makes it clear that it’s our compilation, for example. (Click here to read the complete release) Although not a perfect comparison, it’s more comparable to an unethical innkeeper/web designer taking your website, and replacing the name of your inn with their own.


Hope this helps clarify the issue!


Sandy

 

[SandySoule]

oops -- sorry, I couldn't get it to space the paragraphs correctly! Am a newbie on this board.

 

[Innlover]

Thanks for the welcome, Swirt!
I would still like to hear an answer to my question, and it seems the answer could have come from Sandy or Eric and not just John. The question is, that since you all feel so strongly that the other site stole your hard work and that you have been wronged, have you actually contacted and talked to anyone at that site? It was put before the public in this forum, but confronting them first, privately, seems like the right way to handle an issue. Cuz two wrongs don't make it right!
The other thing I hear is, Eric, you sure seem to take a personal affront to the negative comments, and your assumptions about why it is affecting those of us who show an attitude contrary to yours is completely condescending. And they were true, then it defies your rationale for raising your prices!
You keep going on and on promoting how great you guys are and NO ONE else is as great as you guys. The reality is that you are part of a huge company which allows you to afford much more and quote lots of big statistics to prove it. So you raised your rates and feel justified doing so. Fine. Now just let us decide what is best for us and stop whining that we don't love you after all you have done for us and the industry. It sure sounds like posturing to me and it isn't becoming.

 

[Penelope]

For what they cost you could for a year membership you could hire a good publicist on a per project basis...

.

I disagree that Press Releases cannot be plagiarized. Show me a time when a professional journalist would take any part of a press release, and print it without attribution. We literally get thousands of reprints per month of our releases, and any professional gives attribution.
If a scientist did a press release of a new medical breakthrough and posted it on his blog - a fellow scientist could not get away with copying it verbatim and calling it his own discovery... It is the same here - we did research on inns, contacted them, got them to give us quotes and additional photos, then released it. Another website cannot claim it as it's own.
We have numerous content partnerships where we let websites post our content - everyone from Expedia, to Vast.com, Away.com, LA times, even Google - we send them every photo/url/review we get - and all of them have a written agreement with us with permission to use it.
If you would like to read more about this exact issue, you can go to the American Press Institute page and see a very well written article on attribution and plagiarism... and it is crystal clear what The Innkeeper did is plagiarism.
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/resources/2006/09/when_does_sloppy_attribution_b/
This is just one more example of why our directory is more expensive. Forget the fact that we drive more traffic, but we actually employ people who need to make a living here to put together original content, in addition to everything else we do. I guess we could just fire all of our employees and copy all the content from our competitors to save some money and lower our prices... but of course they don't have those employees putting this together in the first place - they copy ours - so that really wouldn't work...
.

What's the goal of press release? To generate exposure and pickup, therefore its' entire existence is TO BE PLAGiARIZED.
As I said, it's a bit shady, but it's common. The scientist argument is hogwash, are you joking? A new discovery is not in the realm of freely avaialble information (ie a list of travel ideas), so that doesn't apply.
"and it is crystal clear what The Innkeeper did is plagiarism"
.A directory is not a media outlet, so API really has no say because directories don't have an obligation to have journalistic standards, they are for profit vehicles. That article is about the ethics of plagiarism, not the fair use of press releases.
If the LA Times ran the release verbatim and only mentioned the inns, would you complain? No. You complained because you don't approve of the outlet. Whenever you put a release on the wires, it can be shot through thousands of distribution outlets - some strip the links, some the photos, it could be any part that dissapears and this happens thousands of times per day.
This is a huge waste of my time. It seems every time anyone disagrees with you, even on points that are debatable like fair use of news releases, you get nasty.
Plus it's pretty clear as your last paragraph shows you could care less about the ethics of this,or media ethics in general, you only care about propping up your business and slamming everyone elses.
.

Thanks Paul and Catlady - I agree, that credit is all that is due here. But this is not the first time this happened, it just happens to be the latest.
Ivy - I believe you have come up with your own definition and standards on what you feel is right here. I posted the link to the American Press Institue so you could see what a professional organization says about this.
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/resources/2006/09/when_does_sloppy_attribution_b/.
Here is the definition from Wikipedia dealing directly with online plagiarism:
Online plagiarism:
>>>Since it is very easy to steal content from the web by simply copying and pasting, the problem of online plagiarism is growing.[citation needed] This phenomenon, also known as content scraping, is affecting both established sites [3] and blogs [4].
Free online tools are becoming available to help identify plagiarism [5], and there is a range of approaches that attempt to limit online copying, such as disabling right clicking and placing warning banners regarding copyrights on web pages. Instances of plagiarism that involve copyright violation may be addressed by the rightful content owners sending a DMCA removal notice to the offending site-owner, or to the ISP that is hosting the offending site.
It is important to reiterate that plagiarism is not the mere copying of text, but the presentation of another's ideas as one's own, regardless of the specific words or constructs used to express that idea. In contrast, many so-called plagiarism detection services can only detect blatant word-for-word copies of text.<<<
I'm not sure how you could take my post to mean that I do not care about ethics? You do not see our business plagiarising others out there. Quite the contrary - we have a team of people who do nothing but generate original content for the industry. I'm not sure how it becomes unethical to think that other websites wouldn't steal it and claim it as their own. I understand that there are innkeepers on this forum who are not happy that we have changed our gift card pricing, or that we raised our prices this year for listings - but I do not believe that is unethical. We have always been very upfront with our members and the industry about exactly what we do with our website.
.

. . . Here is the definition from Wikipedia dealing directly with online plagiarism:
Online plagiarism:
>>>Since it is very easy to steal content from the web by simply copying and pasting, the problem of online plagiarism is growing.[citation needed] This phenomenon, also known as content scraping, is affecting both established sites [3] and blogs [4]. . . .

This argument is specious. BedandBreakfast.com put the information out there as a PRESS RELEASE, not as a blog entry, an article, or any other copyrighted piece. It was clearly identified as a press release at the beginning and the end of the information, which completely changes the "rules of engagement", as it were. The information was handled as you should have expected, since you released it. Somebody picked it up and and provided another avenue of dissemination. Please stop acting like a petulant child because you were not given the credit for gathering the information in the first place. If it is going to upset you so much, stop issuing press releases, and only post copyrighted articles.
Gotta say, dude, that as an aspiring, the adversarial relationship you seem so intent on having with your membership is not filling me with a lot warm fuzzies.
.

Maybe I'm completely in left field, but I can't find anything on the web, anywhere from any professional source that says press releases can be copied without giving credit or that it is a legitimate and ethical practice. If it is out there, I'd love to see it. That is why I posted those two links.
As far as having an adversarial relationship with innkeepers - it is always a fine line on forums because often times things are taken personally. We participate in these forums and are willing to have an open debate with innkeepers. No other directories do this. We often debate whether or not we should, as we often feel that things are taken the wrong way. This thread is a prime example - we feel wronged that another site is plagiarising us, it is clear that a lot of innkeepers agree, and some do not.
Because of this then, our ethics get called into question, which quite frankly I do not feel is fair. Whether you agree with our pricing or not, we eat, sleep and breath this industry, and are passionate about getting more consumers into the B&B beds. I am on a one week vacation right now, and I've spent all day working. This is not uncommon for us.
I would expect on a forum that we are not always going to agree on everything - but I believe the ultimate result of a forum is to see all opinions expressed and try and get to the truth of an issue - and I believe that it only works with honest, factual communication.
.

As far as having an adversarial relationship with innkeepers - it is always a fine line on forums because often times things are taken personally. We participate in these forums and are willing to have an open debate with innkeepers. No other directories do this.

Don't be so sure.
There's at least one other directory who posts here often (anonymously), as well as other B&B non-innkeeper professionals such as Jay Karan (sp?) from PAII (as himself) and others.
It's comments like this one that have folks accusing you of looking for pats on the back.
I agree, though, you've been getting a lashing...
I'll continue pointing out inaccuracies, errors, and poor logic in a post (yours or anyone else's). I do give you credit for coming back for more in spite of it.
=)
Kk.
.

I do give you credit for coming back for more in spite of it.

I have been mum thus far on these particular threads due to the fact that I'm not an innkeeper. I do, however, have to completely agree with Socks here about giving credit where credit is due

 

[swirt]

Hi Eric,
I do appreciate that you and John and Sandy are on the forum here. I think you add some value here and some balance to our discussions, even if they aren't always appreciated by all.
Like it or not, you have become the Microsoft of the B & B world. Like Microsoft, you have your hands in marketing and inn operations, you are everywhere. And there are great benefits from being the trendsetter and the bar raiser. Unfortunatetly, being that large you are bound to be a bit of lightning rod for discontent, the same way Microsoft is. There will be those who resent you for becoming too large and too successful. There will be those who resent you for squashing other lesser known directories. There will be those who are annoyed that the cost of a functional listing (with a link) went up 30% in one year. There will be those who are annoyed that the bite taken from the Gift Card program went up 30% with less than 5 days notice. There will be those who are annoyed because the 30% increase in the gift card program is being attributed to inngoers having the ability to put "war kittens" (like Capital One) on their gift card.
It's a voting year, have you done all you can do to make your 500lb Gorilla look more sensitive and approachable? (rhetorical)

 

[egoodell]

Hi Eric,
I do appreciate that you and John and Sandy are on the forum here. I think you add some value here and some balance to our discussions, even if they aren't always appreciated by all.
Like it or not, you have become the Microsoft of the B & B world. Like Microsoft, you have your hands in marketing and inn operations, you are everywhere. And there are great benefits from being the trendsetter and the bar raiser. Unfortunatetly, being that large you are bound to be a bit of lightning rod for discontent, the same way Microsoft is. There will be those who resent you for becoming too large and too successful. There will be those who resent you for squashing other lesser known directories. There will be those who are annoyed that the cost of a functional listing (with a link) went up 30% in one year. There will be those who are annoyed that the bite taken from the Gift Card program went up 30% with less than 5 days notice. There will be those who are annoyed because the 30% increase in the gift card program is being attributed to inngoers having the ability to put "war kittens" (like Capital One) on their gift card.
It's a voting year, have you done all you can do to make your 500lb Gorilla look more sensitive and approachable? (rhetorical).

I don't take them so I don't know how they work.
Do those who purchase the gift certificate get a discount or something? Another inn told me they had guests checking in who told them they were coming after a stop at Costco to buy a BedandBreakfast gift card first on their way there. Sounds like the word is out to use it as a discount coupon, I don't know.
Riki

 

[Eric Goldreyer]

So what's an onomatopoeia again? ;^)
Gang,
It's not that we expect a pat on the back. We just have a hard time understanding why we sometimes catch so much heat from a limited number of innkeepers (like on this group) when to the best of our knowledge we are doing so much that we don't see anyone else doing. I truly am not saying that to get an attaboy.
But we don't see anyone else invest the time or money like we do, openly participate with innkeepers on the forums like we do (positive or negative), openly explain everything we are doing like we do, invest in a first-class gift card program, partner with leading Online Travel Agencies, retain a PR person to consitently put out press releases, hire business development folks to grow distribution (visibility for members), invest in getting their PMS "Microsoft Certified", partner with Quickbooks, etc. etc.
So I don't really know how to say it, and you guys don't even need to reply (I mean feel free but I am not asking you to), but we are occasionally a little bewildered in that it does seem that innkeepers could care less and that sometimes they even are upset by it... I am sorry if we occasionally get a little defensive - we are just protecting our baby. Not trying to offend anyone. After spening the last 14 years of my life criss-crossing the country and doing everything we could to educate innkeepers on internet marketing, it's just weird to have people upset with you when you feel you have given so much and when you have explained what it seems are very real, logical, and factual reasons why we do this or that. Sometimes I'll reflect on how far our industry has come and how 12 years ago I was telling innkeepers that the Internet is how they were going to get guests in the future and they were sayig they didn't want computer geeks staying at their B&B. Ten years ago I was telling innkeepers to quit using BeandBreakfast.com or BBOnline as their home page and to get your own domain name. Nine years ago it was online reservations. Two years ago online reviews. So to think we spend time and money traveling all across the country educating innkeepers (well, at least sharing thoughts and ideas with those that will listen) and then fols are upset with us - is just weird. We have over 7,000 members and over a 90% renewal rate which would seem to indicate that we are doing something right. Then we get on here and it seems to be a bashing party that is 90% emotional and 10% fact and 99% negative. Is it the message? The group? The lunar cycle?
I can live with it and I guess that is life/the way it is. But I guess a key thing for me is that while I obviously am in business to make money, I am in the industry because I am and have always been passionate about it. I could have run a "business" in any industry. But I am not here to steal from innkeepers and I would hope that after 14 years of running this business my actions have demonstrated that. I guess it would be naive of me to think that my actions would have demonstrated that to "all" innkeepers because you can never please everyone (and maybe that's it - maybe the reason we have 7,000 members and a 90+% renewal rate but you guys on this forum tend to be more upset/negative is because we are important to you guys and since it seems most of you are smaller properties, maybe you feel the effects more than the average and larger size properties in the industry when we have to raise our rates...?). Just a thought... Anyway, I realize there is a difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. When the day is over, I can sleep at night because i know that even if I have some angry innkeepers, we did what we truly felt was best for our members and our business. If we waited for or expected 100% buy in for everything we launched, not a single product (including the website) would have ever launched because every time we get ready to launch something (the site, online res, ratings, etc.) we hear from a handful of innkeepers that disagree with whatever it is we are doing. I am sure we have been wrong occasionally - If we hadn't I'd say we are not trying enough to move the business forward. My philosophy is that If you are not moving forward, you are moving backwards. So what do we do? We try and learn all of the facts we can (through innkeepers, industry peers, outside industry statistics and our general knowledge and understanding of the internet travel industry - like the conference I am at as I type this post) - then we make a logical, educated and informed business decision.
Ideally you have a business model whereby everyone's interests are aligned. For example, our online res program with Expedia - we only make money when innkeepers make money. Our gift card program - we invest in all of the development and ongoing costs and innkeepers only pay us when they get a reservation from the program. Our membership - based on innkeeper input we invest in the technology to move the billing to monthly to help with innkeeper's cash flow and offer a 90 day 100% money-back gaurantee...
Having said that, I do care what all of you guys think. We are not heartless. That's why I am as open as I am and why I (and my team) spends time on the boards. But caring and wanting to know what you think about something and actually being able to implement all or some of your feedback - is a different thing We listen. We may not always react the way you would like based on what we hear, but we do listen. Then we make a business decison based on all of the factors.
Sorry for the long post but in conclusion, to go back to this whole crazy plagerism issue... the meat for me here is that here is a case whereby we did work to create some original editorial content to drive exposure for our site and our member properties in the release (which because it is exposure for "B&B's" indirectly helps the industry). And some of you here on this board feel that as long as the B&Bs themselves get the exposure, who cares, let another site take the content and link to their own listings for the property. So then let's play this out... so then this other site that has taken our copy and replaced the links to their own member listings gets additional traffic (that they send on to you from THEIR directory) and while you benefit, you have absolutely no idea that that traffic came from OUR invesment/effort to drive you business and you give the other directory credit. Does that really sound right/fair to any of you? We obviously would like for the traffic to you to come through us since we did all of the work and are trying to promote our members through us. Just another example of how we are different and not just another directory, but it seems you guys could care less. The reason you should care is because if this was always the way it was, we would stop doing it. Why would we spend the money on something that drives business to oour members through channels where we get no benefit? if we did that you guys would say "stop doing that and cut my membership fee"... So....... we try to explain and show you guys what we do that is different so you see that this stuff does not just randomly appear out of nowhere, and we are bad guys because of it...?
That is the part I really don't understand and what got me to sit down and try and share some thoughts with you guys.
Regards,
Eric

 

[Eric Goldreyer]

Hi Eric,
I do appreciate that you and John and Sandy are on the forum here. I think you add some value here and some balance to our discussions, even if they aren't always appreciated by all.
Like it or not, you have become the Microsoft of the B & B world. Like Microsoft, you have your hands in marketing and inn operations, you are everywhere. And there are great benefits from being the trendsetter and the bar raiser. Unfortunatetly, being that large you are bound to be a bit of lightning rod for discontent, the same way Microsoft is. There will be those who resent you for becoming too large and too successful. There will be those who resent you for squashing other lesser known directories. There will be those who are annoyed that the cost of a functional listing (with a link) went up 30% in one year. There will be those who are annoyed that the bite taken from the Gift Card program went up 30% with less than 5 days notice. There will be those who are annoyed because the 30% increase in the gift card program is being attributed to inngoers having the ability to put "war kittens" (like Capital One) on their gift card.
It's a voting year, have you done all you can do to make your 500lb Gorilla look more sensitive and approachable? (rhetorical).

I don't take them so I don't know how they work.
Do those who purchase the gift certificate get a discount or something? Another inn told me they had guests checking in who told them they were coming after a stop at Costco to buy a BedandBreakfast gift card first on their way there. Sounds like the word is out to use it as a discount coupon, I don't know.
Riki
.

Riki,
Yes. The "gift cards" have been discounted at Costco to try an incent people to give the gift of a B&B experience. Unfortunately more folks are starting to use them as "discount travel cards" so we have pulle dout of the Costco stores. A few stores may still have a little inventory that they are selling through, but we are not shipping them anymore.
Thanks,
Eric

 

[Eric Goldreyer]

Thanks for the welcome, Swirt!
I would still like to hear an answer to my question, and it seems the answer could have come from Sandy or Eric and not just John. The question is, that since you all feel so strongly that the other site stole your hard work and that you have been wronged, have you actually contacted and talked to anyone at that site? It was put before the public in this forum, but confronting them first, privately, seems like the right way to handle an issue. Cuz two wrongs don't make it right!
The other thing I hear is, Eric, you sure seem to take a personal affront to the negative comments, and your assumptions about why it is affecting those of us who show an attitude contrary to yours is completely condescending. And they were true, then it defies your rationale for raising your prices!
You keep going on and on promoting how great you guys are and NO ONE else is as great as you guys. The reality is that you are part of a huge company which allows you to afford much more and quote lots of big statistics to prove it. So you raised your rates and feel justified doing so. Fine. Now just let us decide what is best for us and stop whining that we don't love you after all you have done for us and the industry. It sure sounds like posturing to me and it isn't becoming..

Sorry... I didn't get your name...?
Because it gets annoying and we think innkeepers should see the type of ethics some of the other folks in the industry have. I guess this tells you a little about us and a little about them...
I didn't realize there was anything wrong with being so tied into and caring so much about the business that I take it personally...?? It's my company. Seems to be somewhat logical as the face of the company and someone (anyone for that matter) that pours everything they have into something - be passionate about it and take negative feedback personally. I guess I do not see that as a negative quality. But you feel free to see it however you like. I am not lecturing or trying to convert you. I am explaining my POV. Maybe I should just not give a toot...
I see nothing wrong with the logic of raising my prices no more than I would expect you as a business person not to set your room prices based upon what folks could afford to pay but rather based on the value you provide and the costs you incur. I don't see many innkeepers, based on my logic, keeping their prices low for the couple that wouuld love to travel and stay at a B&B but because of their jobs, cannot afford this particular property.
I fail to see how saying that maybe our policies are having an adverse effect on you guys more specifically as a group (since you do not appear to be a good representative sample of the greater innkeeper population), is condenscending. It certainly was not meant to be. But I will not try to figure out the logic...
Let's be clear, I am not "promoting". I am spending valuable time on this board attempting to share with you uwhy we feel the way we do. My best educated way in understanding how to do that is to share data with you that "should" explain our position and why we feel the way we do. It doesn't have a thing to do with "promoting". I am sharing/stating facts of data. i do not understand why you seem to always turn that into "promoting" or "whining"...? Seriously. I don't. Honestly I have not seen any of our posts as "whiny". You seem to think if we have a differing point of view or share with you something that we feel helps explain our position, we are "whining"... I just havwe to tell you, it sounds like you are projecting...
Sorry. I have to go. I have spend the day here in Vegas with all of my other leading B&B directory buddies finding more ways to get exposure for our members...
Cheers,
Eric