[WikiEN-l] Real-time mirrors as a net revenue _source_?

Sun Apr 9 18:11:18 UTC 2006

On 4/9/06, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Real-time mirrors seem to be a recurring phenomenon. They are a drain on
> Wikipedia's resources, and hunting them and shooting them down is a
> continuing battle.
>
> The reasoning behind these mirrors appears to be:
>
> 1 putting up a Wikipedia mirror with ads will make money...
> 2 too lazy to set up a proper mirror...
> 3 instead, set up a script that queries Wikipedia in real time...
> 4 profit!
>
> However; why not turn this on its head, and offer a real-time, or
> near-real-time, Wikipedia feed service to paid-up subscribers?
...
> Good idea, or bad idea?
>
> -- Neil

>From a business perspective, what is to stop a site from sucking in
just enough to mirror in real-time, and then turning around and
forwarding it to other mirrors? In an extreme case, there would be
only one customer of this service (paying say $1000) and they in turn
might have multiple customers of their own (say 11m paying say $100);
the original customer will turn a profit just from reselling the feed,
the secondary customers will save major amounts of money, and all
benefitting from advertising. I doubt we could prohibit it
contractually, and even if we could, suing fly-by-night outfits would
be tough, even in addition to the PR aspects.

~maru