Lonely Planet forums: you provide content for free, they sell it for profit

[Minnie_the_Minx]

that virtual tourists looks a better bet, anyone tried it?

Virtual Tourist and Trip Advisor are good sites as well as you're more able to search for hotels and their ratings

 

[jonH]

Trip Advisor

THANKS sound right up my street

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

THANKS sound right up my street

Here's an example page of hotel reviews:

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g298283-d511083-Reviews-Sunset_Beach_Resort-Langkawi_Kedah.html

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Link for Virtual Tourist

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/Malaysia/Negeri_Kedah/Pulau_Langkawi-1282739/TravelGuide-Pulau_Langkawi.html

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

THANKS sound right up my street

that's ratings given by the general public rather than the hotel industry

 

[Fingers]

In fact the books (and Rough Guide, for that matter) also have a bad reputation regarding payment for contributions. The idea seems to be that you send them something because it'd be really cool to help them out.

To be fair, they have sent me free books for my contributions. As with the Thorn Tree, they changed the rules a couple of years ago.

 

[gnoriac]

Didn't the BBC buy them out recently?

Yep, big news for the 'u75 Burma contingent', haven't seen any signs so far of the BBC's ethics (whatever they are) percolating through.

 

[danny la rouge]

Is this really legally enforceable?

Yes. This happened with Gracenotes. The database was built up for free by users, then when there was enough info it was flogged.

 

[pinkychukkles]

Yes. This happened with Gracenotes. The database was built up for free by users, then when there was enough info it was flogged.

Is access to the information still free?
The only reason I ask is because this may very well happen with Discogs as the site is well on the way to becoming the best place to buy secondhand music online as the release information is far more detailed than what other sites provide (e.g. GEMM, Musicstack etc). I wouldn't be surprised if Kevin (the site owner) hasn't received multi-million dollar offers to sell the site already. What would the morals of that be? Discogs wouldn't exist without his programming skills yet all of the information contained therein has been user-submitted.

e2a: Discogs does have a social contract, even though it's a bugger to find now as there don't seem to be any prominent links to it anywhere on the site:
http://help.discogs.com/wiki/SocialContract

 

[Sunray]

I think if that came up in court, it'd get torn to shreds because all contracts have to be reasonably equitable to both parties and that clearly isn't in any way at all.

They could take your written travel log, publish it and make money from it. I think that you could reasonably ask for some of the proceeds.

 

[mhendo]

Is access to the information still free?

Access to all the information that was collected before Gracenote became "privatized" is apparently available at freedb. Of the content that has been created and/or submitted since then. i'm not sure what's free and what isn't.

Wired did an interview last year with one of the creators of CDDB, the CD-recognition service that became part of Gracenote, and he explains how and why the company changed its strategy and business plan. I'll leave it up to you to decide how convincing his argument is.

Gracenote Defends its Evolution

 

[Donna Ferentes]

To be fair, they have sent me free books for my contributions.

Gosh, that's fucking good of them. What do they call it, payment in kind?

 

[DG55]

Ridiculous. Time out is better IMO.