The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is seeking public comments on its Ethics Code until January 5. If you are involved with any business use of social media (which includes blogging), you should review the code and make suggestions.

For some, the business ethics of social media present a quandary. Organizations like the WOMMA, and federal regulators like the FTC and the EU are trying to make ethical (and legal) behavior easier with codes of ethics, new regulations, etc.

This is a favorite topic of mine, and is covered in my book. (In fact the WOMMA graciously granted me permission to include the full text of their code in the book.) The WOMMA Ethics Code is one of the best out there.

WOMMA is calling its public participation The Living Ethics Project. In a letter to members and friends of the organization, president-elect Paul M. Rand wrote:

“As most of you know, WOMMA has helped shape and lead the charge for effective and meaningful social media disclosure. The recently introduced FTC Guidelines, in fact, make numerous positive references to WOMMA’s Ethics Code.

As a next step in the process, WOMMA is working to finalize explicit best practices for social media disclosure for both marketers and bloggers (like the FTC, WOMMA applies the term “bloggers” to refer to individuals posting online content, whatever the channel).

Please take a moment to review these disclosure guidelines at the Living Ethics blog and provide your comments.

The comments section will remain open until January 5, 2010, and final guidelines will be issued shortly thereafter.”

Tags: FTC, EU, WOMMA, Code of Ethics

Technology has made many things possible, and is enabling unethical people to pay as little as one quarter cent per word for their writing. The Internet is the great democratizer. It is also the great enslaver of the disadvantaged and the marginalized.

Freelance writers, often students, mothers, and older people, are the victims of a global conspiracy to pit people against each other to auction their skills and time for as little as possible.

One of the culprits is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MT). Amazon didn’t invent microworking, which is the practice of paying independent contractors by the task instead of by the hour. But they are the first globally recognized company to put their name on the practice, thereby endorsing it and making it an acceptable business practice.

Amazon MT is a service that allows businesses to contract with Amazon to have people perform very brief, discreet operations like manually forwarding an e-mail based on subject matter or moderating blog comments. My son, a student, worked for MT moderating pictures for a social network at the rate of a few pennies each.

ShortTask is another example of a service that brings together businesses and people who want to do microcontract work. In addition to facilitating this process, ShortTask often has questionable tasks like paying for positive product reviews and blog comments, Diggs, Twitter followers, etc.

And last night, someone tweeted a link to Article Slash, which had this posting:

“Hi, I need a group of writers or writing teams who can deliver 20-30 articles of 300 words every day. Payout will be made everyday through paypal.. 0.75$ for every 300 word article.”

Seventy-five cents per article! That’s .0025 per word, one quarter of a penny! If you could write 1200 words per hour (I’m a professional writer and I can’t), you could make $3 an hour doing this.

Our current minimum wage in California is $8, and the federal minimum is $7.25. As bad as that is, there are millions of Californians who would think they had died and gone to heaven to get $8 an hour. The rate at which people work and the quality expected by buyers varies, but the wages offered by these services, like the 75-cent, 300-word article, are equivalent to under $2 an hour. The last time the federal minimum wage was below $2 was in 1974.

Both California state and federal law require* that pieceworkers be paid a rate that is equal to or more than minimum wage, except for students and “new learners” (people who have never done the job before) who are paid at 85% of the minimum wage. Of course this is for regular employees, not contractors.

Some of the inevitable byproducts of this trend are:

• Devaluation of good writing, research and analysis
• Illiteracy
• Theft of editorial content

Microworking is an area in which the law has not caught up with technology and common practice. And the marketplace for these services is mostly underground, so the average person isn’t aware of it or upset by it. The operators of sites like Article Slash and ShortTask may argue that they are merely facilitators, and not responsible for the behavior of their users.

Ours is supposedly a free market economy, but we also have checks and balances so that everyone from the soup kitchen to the boardroom is protected from abuse. As the economic recovery slowly ticks up, one can only hope that supply and demand moderate the wages for microworkers so they are fairly paid for their effort and intellect. Unfortunately, the practices, which may have been made necessary by the downturn, will be status quo for some companies who will be unable to resist the appeal of continued lower operating costs.

* This is based on my research and interpretation of government documents. I am not an attorney and could be wrong about this.

Tags: Microworking, Article Slash, minimum wage, piecework, Amazon, Mechanical Turk, ShortTask, writing, writers

You’re at a conference, the wifi is good, and you’re excited about live tweeting the next speaker. But have you ever wondered whether it’s “OK” to copy and publish someone else’s words and ideas? If you were at the movie theater, neither the studio nor the theater operator would permit you to videotape portions of the movie to post on your blog. On the other hand, the art of critical commentary goes back to at least Shakespeare’s time, so it’s definitely established both in common practice and in the law that reproducing information, even copyrighted information, is acceptable under certain circumstances.

Setting aside issues of whether the practice is actually useful, and whether it is distracting to the speaker and to others in attendance, live tweeting and live blogging of conferences, events and webcasts raises legal and ethical issues. Producers of webcasts and live events often charge admission for these, and they may include copyrighted material. Speakers may also have copyrighted their presentations, or may (in my case) quote substantial portions of a copyrighted book or other work. These words and ideas are essentially products that are sold commercially, and the owners have certain rights to them.

On the other hand, the law does permit reproduction of portions of copyrighted material. I have two biases that affect my opinions on this issue, but I think they balance each other. I have a degree in journalism so I appreciate the need for journalists to incorporate information from third parties in their works. As the author of a book, I also understand the need for copyright protections for commercial content.

The best guidance for whether live blogging and live tweeting is acceptable comes from the Fair Use provision of U.S. copyright law, which allows a certain percentage of a copyrighted work to be reproduced for purposes such as a review of a book or theatrical play. Factors that affect whether reproduction of a copyrighted work is fair use are:

1. “The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission.”

In other words, fair use is in the eyes of the beholder. The government will not rule on what is or isn’t fair use, leaving it the judgment of the individual, and in some cases, the courts to make the ultimate determination.

Despite the federal government’s unwillingness to establish numerical guidelines for fair use, many organizations have set their own limits. The University of California for example, in its Policy on the Reproduction of Copyrighted Materials for Teaching and Research, permits teachers to reproduce for classroom use “either a complete article, story or essay of less than 2,500 words or an excerpt of not more than 2,500 words from any prose work.” The policy was written in 1986, long before blogging and tweeting. Today, 2500 words is quite substantial and I think excessive. The UC policy also reminds teachers that if they exceed fair use limits they “can subject the one making unauthorized copies and the University to severe penalties.” The UC policy pertains to photocopying, not live events, but it does give some ideas of how to apply fair use. (I did not find a UC policy covering other fair use guidelines.)

Last year, the Associated Press announced it would “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.”

A practical approach is to simply ask yourself, does the speaker want his or her work reproduced and distributed free of charge? Some may, some may not. The right, and the ability, to freely share information is such a cornerstone of Web 2.0, that I think most conference organizers and speakers in the Web 2.0/social media sphere are happy to have their talks live tweeted and live blogged. Either practice is more like reporting than reproduction, and would involve the “copying” of relatively small percentages of the content.

Most speakers make their slides and speaker’s notes available to attendees and these are freely distributed. I do the same, and I don’t care if my talks are reproduced in full, as long as there is attribution. And if someone can benefit from the information, I am happy for them to have it. Who knows — it could lead someone to buy my book or choose to engage my company.

My publisher generally allows me to grant permission to people who request the right to reproduce content from my book as long as the material constitutes less than 10% of the book. It is unlikely that someone live tweeting one of my talks could approach that 140 characters at a time, or even that a blogger could do so.

In one recent case, a blogger and researcher was criticized for live blogging a scientific meeting because the organizers felt he should have “abide(d) by the rules governing professional journalists attending the conference.” These rules include the requirement that journalists inform conference organizers in advance of their intentions.

Another interesting issue journalists are contending with is how Fair Use applies to information published on Twitter. Last month, Julie Posetti wrote a piece on the PBS MediaShift blog, Rules of Engagement for Journalists on Twitter. She believes that anything that appears on Twitter is “fair game”:

“Although social media etiquette may not recognize a journalist’s right to report any material published openly, the reality is that open Twitter accounts are a matter of permanent public record and fair game for journalists. While attribution is vital and it might be polite (but not necessary) to seek the approval of a Twitterer to quote them, I don’t see anything unethical about using tweets in mainstream news coverage.”

She goes on to say, however that she feels private Twitter accounts, those requiring owner approval of subscription requests, are off-the-record and not fair game. I disagree with her take that simply because something is published it is therefore a matter of public record and fair game. This would probably apply to quoting someone in a story, but not to reproducing material that might be copyrighted. Just because a tweet is only 140 characters does not remove it from the domain of copyrighted material. Multiple tweets could be used to convey an article, or a Twitter-based webcast. A journalist could quote a portion under Fair Use, but could not reproduce something in its entirety.

This also points out one of the weak links in the integrity of information in the Web 2.0 world. Bloggers and tweeters are NOT professional journalists. They don’t have training in ethical practices in areas like attribution and when and how to quote a source.

I generally hold that new media does not require new ethics, and I think this is largely the case in live tweeting/live blogging a presentation or webcast. Given that these practices don’t generally involve reproduction of any significant portion of the entire “work,” both common practice and the law seem to permit this.

Do you live tweet conferences and web casts? Do you have any personal guidelines you follow, or are you aware of any guidelines established by your company or organization?

Tags: Fair Use, copyright, Twitter, live tweeting, live blogging, guidelines

I am becoming increasingly annoyed (even for me) at the number of times I see bloggers using what I call phantom links. A phantom link is one in which the blogger refers to and links to information on someone else’s blog, but can’t be bothered to give credit, by name, to the blogger he or she is linking to. Here’s an example of the right way and wrong way to link to someone’s blog:

Right way: Steve Rubel, for example, suggests that the use of Twitter direct messages as a medium for PR pitches might be a “practice that journalists can live with.”

Wrong way: Many have suggested that the use of Twitter direct messages as a medium for PR pitches might be a practice that journalists can live with.

Sometimes the use of the phantom link is just sloppy writing. At other times it is used because the blogger wants to appear to have “done the right thing,” but at the same time, would like to claim credit for some of the source blogger’s ideas. If I, or some other blogger, has laid the groundwork for a post, or produced a post worthwhile enough to reference, then I think it’s appropriate to give credit where due.

Tags: phantom links, attribution

ShortTask, launched in late February, has the potential to be an interesting service, but has, in my opinion, become one of a number of clearinghouses for third-party astroturfing schemes of somewhat questionable ethical intent. ShortTask, according to the company, is:

“based on the idea that there are still many online jobs that cannot be fully replaced by technology and require human input. ShortTask has subdivided its working into two categories — solvers and seekers. Seekers are companies or individuals who need various tasks accomplished without hiring in-house staff, while solvers are workers who can complete these jobs virtually and get paid.”

In other words, if a company regularly has short tasks that cannot be done by a computer, it can post those tasks on ShortTask for Solvers to perform on a per task basis.

ShortTask is very similar to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (which I wrote about here.) Anyone can sign up for either service. ShortTask refers to Seekers (people contracting out small tasks) and Solvers (people who perform the tasks.)

Though not the point of this post, the impact of this on the American worker is clear. So many in-house salaried positions have been converted to temporary contractor positions. And with microcontracting/microsourcing, it gets worse. Not only are jobs outsourced, so are tasks.

But beyond economic concerns, ShortTask (and other services) seem to facilitate behavior of questionable ethical intent. For example, some ShortTask tasks require users to post positive product reviews on Epinion, or RateItAll. The instructions for these tasks make it clear that payment will not be made unless the reviews are positive, and that when rating systems are available, products and services must be rated no lower than three or four out of a possible five. Others require a “Like” on StumbleUpon or a Digg.

All of these actions use deception and misrepresentation to create a positive impression of a product, service, company or etc. The practice of having company representatives, or their agents (PR firms, for example, or in this case, Solvers), leave anonymous comments on blogs, web sites, communities, etc. to create the impression of independent consumer endorsement of products, services and companies is called astroturfing, and is a disservice to consumers, unethical, and in some cases illegal.

Industry associations like the Word of Mouth Marketing Association are trying to address this trend with codes of ethics and education, but as evidenced by continuing ethical breaches by individuals and corporations alike, self-regulation is apparently not enough.

The EU’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive bans astroturfing, The FTC is also increasingly concerned about this trend, and may crack down.

What’s happening with ShortTask (and other services) is that companies and their agents are struggling to create arms-length astroturfing schemes in which, somehow, because of the involvement of multiple third parties, companies mistakenly believe they can create amorphous arrangements that shield them from accusations of wrongdoing.

ShortTask is not necessarily to blame for this. As spammers and unethical “business people” take advantage of blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other vehicles to peddle their scams, they will also do so when new media become available. ShortTask has the potential to be very useful to companies microsourcing tasks and to people looking for a modest income performing these tasks.

For now, companies and consumers alike should be aware that not every bit of user-generated content is user-generated, and until more demanding standards are in place, by choice or regulation, social media is no more trustworthy than “old media,” and in some cases, less so.

Note: I offered a ShortTask representative the opportunity to respond, but have not heard back. That offer remains open, and I welcome a ShortTask response either as a comment on this post or in a guest blog post.

Tags: ShortTask, WOMMA, EU, Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, astroturfing,, code of ethics, FTC, Amazon, Mechanical Turk, microsourcing, microcontracting