What is good curation versus bad curation? The image is a remix of a presentation entitled “Link Building by Imitation” and authored by link building expert Ross Hudgens — and explains the skill set pretty well.
The original image used words like “theft” and “steal” and prompted a debate amongst curators like Robin Good who selected the resource and curated it.
Robin’s point in curating this resource:
Here’s a great visualization of how different can be the traits of content re-use. In the left column you can see what would appear to be the ideal traits of a professional curator, while on the right you can immediately recognize the ones of scrapers, republishers, cheap aggregators and other “thin” publishers as Google would call them.
I think it can serve as an excellent reference, when in doubt about whether you are still doing the right thing or not, when it comes to re-using and republishing other people content.
Guillaume DeCugis, founder of Scoop.It, took issue with the chart because of using the words “theft.” He says that copyright infringement is not theft. His concern was that people would get the wrong message: content curation = theft.
Robin Good, responded with “Evidently not everyone thinks curation, or much of what is sold “as curation” today, is indeed anything of value beyond the mere copying and republishing of other people content.” His point is that there is a distinction between good curation skills and poor ones. Robin expresses it like this:
You should NOT mix-up republishing, self-expression and easy-content-sharing with curation, because they are in fact at opposite extremes of the same spectrum.
I think debating the word theft takes us away from this point. So, given that the presentation was published under a creative commons license, I decided to remix it and remove the troublesome words. To me this a good chart or reminder of being a good curator. The content curator’s code is a useful framework, but I wish it was as easy to use as a creative commons license.
The list of skills might, at first blush, feel like a lot of extra work. It isn’t once you’ve established good habits. And, the benefits of good curation far outweigh “bad curation.” This is the topic of my feature article the NTEN Change journal for June, 2012.
David Hartstein says
Great post, as always Beth. Definitely worth considering when repurposing, or even just sharing, content. Agreed it’s not so much a matter of defining “theft” as it is adding to the amount of valuable content being produced. Good curation can help push conversations forward, which can help propel innovation. Thanks for sharing.
Lukia Costello says
Copyright infringement is theft. You are robbing the creator of a means to get paid for their work.