Copyleft: Impact of newly enforced Adsense?

Are my partners and other puslishers at risk?

[adfree]

My site allows re-using copy defined in a specific copyleft agreement (attribution share-alike 2.5). Would Google - with their newly enforced Adsense policy) be able to understand and respect that though?

I am worried partners who gladly use my articles under given permission definitions might be troubled now.

[mzanzig]

Excuse me, but what is "copyleft"?

[abbeyvet]

Copyleft is a general method for making a program or other work free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.

[gnu.org...]

[adfree]

Sorry I wasn't clear but the link provided pretty much explains it well, Wikipedia carries the most extensive description as they use similar copyright/copyleft rules.

So, anyone with an educated opinion about my concern?

[europeforvisitors]

I don't see why it would be a problem, because Google knows perfectly well that press releases, AP stories, manufacturers' boilerplate sell copy, and other forms of duplicate content are used legitimately on multiple sites. As long as you aren't filing DMCA complaints against your "copyleft" borrowers, they shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Still, why take a forum member's word for it when you can get an official response from AdSense Support?

[adfree]

Thanks Europe!

I will just do that and get G's official pulse on it, will post an abstract here then for reference to others who might be interested.

Finally, it might just comfort my partners and content "re-users" if in doubt.

[jomaxx]

If you're explicitly giving permission to republish your articles, then I don't see how there's even a potential for concern.

[adfree]

It's not about the perception. It's about for some automatisms (at G by enforcing their Adsense policies with auto detection and not manually) to potentially pick out "copyright violators" that are in fact having permission.

[europeforvisitors]

It's about for some automatisms (at G by enforcing their Adsense policies with auto detection and not manually) to potentially pick out "copyright violators" that are in fact having permission.

If Google were to use automation to flag what it perceived as copyright violations, the algorithm would almost certainly look for "signatures" of certain practices (such as scraping) and not duplicate content per se. Why? Because flagging publishers for duplicate content alone would whack every newspaper, magazine, or news site that uses AP stories, press releases, wire-service columns, etc.

[jomaxx]

It's impossible for Google to automatically flag copyright violations for exact reason you state: the publisher could have permission or a valid license to use the copyrighted work, unbeknownst to Google.

There a few special cases -- MP3 downloads, lyrics sites, maybe scraper sites -- where they could make a pretty good guess. But other than those situations, I don't see how they can know if there's a copyright violation or not until a DMCA complaint is filed.

[adfree]

So I guess I shouldn't be concerned afterall, hmm. Guess u're right. Thanks!