Wednesday, June 03, 2009

MegaNom

Has anyone heard of MegaNom? (meganom.tumblr.com)

One of my recipe photos appeared on their site. It does link back to the recipe on my blog, so I guess it's not a bad thing. I'm just always leery about sites like that. I can't decide if I want them to take down my photo or not.


This Post was written by Dawn from Dawn's Recipes

17 comments:

cybele said...

I just noticed some Tumblr blogs lifting my content (usually just the photos). I'm not sure how widely read the posts are or if they're just for personal clippings.

I've also noticed similar things with FriendFeed too.

Anonymous said...

Wow, sorry for "stealing" your photo - the intent was to showcase your talent. Your photo has been taken down, and none of your images will be posted again.

Same goes for Tastespotting.

-- The admin of Meganom

Anonymous said...

I think it would cool to have others share my photos. IF it were personal photos, yes, I would be concerned. But it's a picture of food.

Anonymous said...

Hey "Admin of Meganom" there's some huge differences between your crappy site and Tastespotting, not the least of which is that you need to submit your photos / recipes to reputable sites like Tastespotting and Food Gawker. Because your lame site doesn't get submissions (or hits I imagine), you have to troll out and steal them. Nice try pretending like you have anything to do with Tastespotting, by the way.

Anonymous said...

Hey moronic Anonymous, I never made any claims to being a part of Tastespotting - rather, I've submitted Dawn's photos to TS before, as well as FoodGawker, because I liked her work. That definitely won't happen again.

As for hits, well, let's just say they're not lacking.

And MegaNom is hardly crappy. In fact, it gets a lot of traffic, so I'll let the masses overrule you. *points and nelson-laughs* ;)

Anonymous said...

What an ugly, childish spat. I think a great deal of this sort of thing comes about because those of us who take the time to create our own content cannot understand what moves a person to start up an aggregator blog. It seems parasitic to me. Of course I like to keep track of other blog recipes I want to try, but for that I use bookmarks, and sometimes del.icio.us. If there is a link I want to share with friends, I send it to them. I am not sure what the point is of assembling other people's content in blog form. Maybe this is a generational thing. It seems like the vast majority of people who use Tumblr are really young kids who have never grown up with the idea that parasitic behavior is anything to frown upon. They think it is just flattery. Likewise, they don't see anything gross about speaking in marketing terms, like "showcase your talent," etc. When I was in my 20's (and that was only about 10 years ago, but so much has changed) that sort of thing was considered extremely uncool. Hopefully having your own ideas and your own things to say will come back into fashion sometime soon.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure it's a generational thing. I think that people are collectors by nature, and like to stash things away for safekeeping. I think that the argument that it's "parasitic" is incorrect - what are aggregator blogs gaining? Is this site running any ads? If not, then they're probably not doing anything besides creating a page with a bunch of pretty pictures. How is this site any different from the others such as taste spotting or food gawker? Is the entire business model of tumblr built upon theft? I would have to disagree with that. Vehemently.

If they're giving the original poster credit and not using any of their content, then what's the harm? That's a big part of the problem with the internet - once you put something out there, the medium is such that duplication is a given. In fact, many would say it's turned into a cultural thing, with the "internet culture" seeing aggregation as a form of flattery.

Anyone who disagrees with that might be well to stop posting on the internet if it bothers them.

Dawn0fTime said...

I just want to step in to say I did not mean to start such a heated debate. I just had never heard of tumblr and wanted to ask my fellow food bloggers what they thought. There are many sites out there that aren't legitimate, so I thought it best to be sure. I did not mean to offend anyone, and I'm very sorry if anyone felt I was attacking them. I was merely looking for more information. Thank you.

Melissa said...

Hey!

Hungry? City Guides has been following your blog and would love to add you to our contact list so more readers can find you!

We just need your name and email. Thanks!

-Melissa @ Hungry? City Guides.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, June 15, 2009 10:08:00 AM: This is Anonymous June 13, 2009 3:00:00 PM. I think you misunderstood me. I did not say that I thought aggregator blogs were "theft," and I did not say that I thought their motive was financial gain. Regarding "what are aggregator blogs gaining," you seem to view this in purely financial terms and/or intellectual property rights, whereas I was talking about it in terms of it being in poor taste. Every question you raised is about money and property rights: "Is this site running any ads? . . . Is the entire business model of tumblr built upon theft?" That is not at all what I was talking about. I was simply saying that I think it is in poor taste to establish a blog that, in effect, is simply saying "here are all sorts of things other people said and did and made that I think are cool, and I have nothing to say myself apart from pointing at them." And I think that is what aggregator blogs seek to gain: attention and praise for the people who put them together on the basis of their supposed good taste. Otherwise why not simply keep your favorite sites/posts from other people to yourself? I completely agree that people are "collectors by nature," and I thought I was addressing that by saying that I certainly collect my own favorite bookmarks. The difference is that I don't make them into a blog. Because I think it is tacky and parasitic to do so. I don't think Foodgawker and Tastespotting are comparable to aggregator blogs because they depend on many users for contributions - it is not one person saying "here, I have nothing to offer but my taste" - and because the vast majority of their submissions seem to be from the bloggers themselves, who (rightly) see these sites as a place to find new readers.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and one other thing, regarding the comment that "many would say it's turned into a cultural thing, with the 'internet culture' seeing aggregation as a form of flattery": doubtlessly it is correct that many people see it as a form of flattery, but what I was saying is that those people are not people who I think have good taste. "Many" people wear Crocs too, for example, and "many" people find big dumb movies in which lots of stuff gets blown up more entertaining than Pasolini. I don't let those people guide my decision-making about what works and what doesn't.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this - you seem to think that aggregator blogs are nothing but ego-centric clearinghouses. How is this different from any other collection of artwork?

How can you judge people as tacky and parasitic simply for collecting, especially if they link back to the original work to give credit? I think that perhaps your views are a little antiquated, and that the internet is going to continue to rub you the wrong way into perpetuity as things like this become even more commonplace, not less.

Anonymous said...

Meganom,

The Dawn's Recipes site clearly states "All rights reserved" at the bottom, and even if it didn't, all material you see on websites should be assumed to be rights reserved unless it explicitly says otherwise, e.g. through a Creative Commons license.

Giving credit is not enough. One must have permission to repost another person's intellectual property first.

I've personally had Tumblr aggregator sites email me to request permission to repost my photos in much the manner that your site does. And I've granted permission, because I appreciated the fact that they asked.

What you are doing when you repost another person's content, including images, without their permission is theft, and it's illegal. If your operating practice is to repost photos illegally, expect to one day have lawyers breathing down your neck.

Basically, running a site based upon intellectual property theft is a dead end — someone's going to bring it to an end sooner or later.

Your best course of action is to add one simple step to your business model: request permission from each site that you'd like to repost photos from. Most will be happy to let you do it, and you'll be operating on the up and up.

However, given your strangely laissez-faire attitude in response to previous commenters pointing similar things out to you, I'm afraid I'm going to post as "Anonymous" as well, because otherwise I fear my food porn will wind up plasterd on Meganom without my consent.

Curt McAdams said...

Meganom has stolen one of mine from Bucky's Barbecue & Bread, and I've tried to contact them. They don't respond and haven't removed my photo. I'll be going to the tumblr admin to have something done.

I realize this is an older post, but my copyright is clearly displayed, too, but they took a photo from my site and rehosted it on their own.

Just because someone else does it doesn't make it right to do. Tumblr and other sites set up an environment that encourages theft of photos, unfortunately.

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Admin said...

Thanks! Just went over to do that and saw that they pulled it down. :D
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