Aggregation sites link back to the original site or give credit, this is THEFT, call it what you like.

The bottom line is this, this individual set up his site with the intention of passing off as Nairalist.com or associating with Nairalist.com.

If he had set up Nairalists.com and sought his own advertisers then there will be no passing off as Nairalist.com is still new.

I don’t mind competition, in fact we need it on the web in Nigeria, but this is wrong.

Your idea of content theft could be argued as aggregation of content, just like news sites, and job sites do.

My blog has my personal written work and they are protected by default and the intent of my publication cannot be confused to one of a classified advertisement website which just publishes submitted advertisements without any written terms etc.

The internet is a new one with regards to copyright and trademark but I believe with time, some of these will eventually be implied.

Lets be clear this is not competition, it’s outright content theft, the only problem here is that Nairalist.com can’t scream thief! Only the advertisers can do that.

A dirty trick will be emailing Nairalist.com users using the email addresses on the site, that I can accept but not theft and passing off.

By the way, where is the link to your copyright on your website? I see no reason why I should put your name below “my new blog”

I think you got it all confused. Please do put my raised points into context. I clearly stated that the type and nature of thecontent is important.

Yes you can republish my blog with my name at the bottom, its acceptable.

Nairalist does not own the advertisement on the site, its a platform for broadcasting advertisement. The owners of the content, i.e the advertisers, did not sign any agreement on how their advertisement should be published or how it should be used, rather its presumed that the intent is for public consumption.

If anybody thinks its perhaps a “dirty” approach to competing, I agree, but saying it is wrong without valid points, I don’t agree.

Ethics do have value and societal standard clauses, and when the clauses are not defined, or cannot be defined, there brings about the birth of subjective conclusions and debate, such as what is wrong and what is not.

@kazey journal
If Nairalist+s.com was an aggregate site then it will link back to the original content owner and not pass off the advert as theirs.

Let us call a spade a spade, this is wrong. Maybe I should start publishing your blogs as mine and not giving you any credit, will you like that?

If this is not illegal then at best it is immoral.

Ethics is not something that can be taught to an adult. Either you know the difference between right and wrong, or you don’t.

Some people just don’t.

How do you define content theft? Is it When the creator of that content says that his content are for Nairalist.com only?

or Is it when the creator doesn’t say anything about his content, and creates that particular content with the un-mentioned assumable intent of publicising and a possibility of re-distribution and re-publication due to the nature of the content (classifieds or ads)?

I really would like to know? This is because the content of Nairalist.com was created with the intent of publication and redistribution and its not an “art work” and only the author of the content created (the ads) can scream “theft”, like you just mentioned. Otherwise, I really don’t see any crime been committed.

I personally wouldn’t mind my classified post been re-published in many sites. That is what many job aggregators do by the way.