GeneralConference.Net

So you have the BIG idea that the Church or community needs to develop. Discuss that idea here. Maybe you just want to make a suggestion on a new forum topic. Let us know.
mrcolj-p40
New Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:00 pm
Location: Marin County, CA
Contact:

GeneralConference.Net

#1

Post by mrcolj-p40 »

Thumbing through the net during conference, I just bought GeneralConference.Net. If the church wants it to forward to the appropriate folder on lds.org, of course they can have it. GeneralConference.COM is spam, .ORG and .INFO are another church, and I bought .NET. Otherwise anyone have any ideas for it?

Can I reprint old conference talks on it en masse? If not, how much can I excerpt (presumably then linking to the article on lds.org)?
jbh001
Senior Member
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 6:17 pm
Location: Las Vegas, NV

#2

Post by jbh001 »

mrcolj wrote:Can I reprint old conference talks on it en masse? If not, how much can I excerpt (presumably then linking to the article on lds.org)?
Doing so is likely a violation of copyright. Or did you miss that disclaimer at the end of each session of conference that no part of it can be rebroadcast (or republished) without express written permission? Your expressed intent does not fall under the "fair use" exceptions granted to journalists. Conference content is not public domain, and if you repost it, you will likely be asked by Intellectual Reserve to remove it, especially since the content is already available at lds.org. This has already been done with LDS hymn sites. If the Church really wanted that domain name, it likely would have already taken steps to obtain it.

You might be okay with publishing Conference Reports prior to 1970 since these are not currently available at lds.org, but I doubt it. Besides, what are you going to use for your data source? Are you going to type it in by hand, scan in the relevant content, or simply reuse content already existing on the net? You are likely not on very stable ground legally, regardless.
mrcolj-p40
New Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:00 pm
Location: Marin County, CA
Contact:

#3

Post by mrcolj-p40 »

jbh001 wrote:Doing so is likely a violation of copyright. Or did you miss that disclaimer at the end of each session of conference that no part of it can be rebroadcast (or republished) without express written permission?
Uh, that was my point. :) j/k No, really, thank you for your response. I'm really just asking if anyone has an idea for the domain, since I can't let those kinds of high real estate domains go free (since every other permutation has been commandeered by non-LDS hosts, and this would have been reregistered quickly.) Reposting talks of a certain age may be fair game, and if so, that's an option. Excerpting sections of new talks is totally fair use--I'm not sure if I want to do that, but how much is the letter was part of the question. And there are sites all over that copy conference talks, so it's a third question how much the church cares whether people do that anyway. So that's only one idea, but it's a more complex one than it perhaps looks like at first. (I'm not saying unsettled, just complex.) I really just bought the domain and need to know what to do with it...
User avatar
Mikerowaved
Community Moderators
Posts: 4734
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:56 am
Location: Layton, UT

#4

Post by Mikerowaved »

mrcolj wrote:I'm really just asking if anyone has an idea for the domain, since I can't let those kinds of high real estate domains go free (since every other permutation has been commandeered by non-LDS hosts...

...I really just bought the domain and need to know what to do with it...
I'm a little unclear. Are you asking if the Church wants to buy or otherwise take over the domain, or are you possibly planning something yourself for it?
So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
mrcolj-p40
New Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:00 pm
Location: Marin County, CA
Contact:

#5

Post by mrcolj-p40 »

I have no idea what I want to do with the domain. I'm probably planning something myself for it, and was just looking for ideas and clarification. But, if someone else can do something better with it, I'm open for that too. That's all my point was. So no, I'm not trying to sell it to the church or anything--they can have it for free if they want it. If no one has any ideas I'll probably just redirect it to lds.org/conference/
atticusewig
Member
Posts: 308
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:48 am

#6

Post by atticusewig »

A while ago someone mentioned on another thread the idea of a
community annotation / indexing project of general conference
talks. Basically, the idea would be to allow the community to link together
talks based on categories or references in one talk to another talk --
that sort of thing.

Got me to thinking that a web application could be developed that would
be an annotational proxy to the official conference pages. Basically,
your program would load the official conference talk in a frame,
and then apply a set of rules to it modify it's contents like a proxy server does.
The rules would be generated by the community, and would probably need
to be able to be created using a user-friendly process.

For example,
Let's say an official conference talk quotes something said in a talk in
1980. Currently, it might cite this, but then you would have to manually
look up the talk. Your proxy-app, could have a rule that changes the
citation to a link to the 1980 talk, so all the person would have to do is
click to go to that talk. A quote from a Walt Whitman poem could also
have a link to a poetry site that presented the complete poem.

I can't speak to what legal ramifications such a proxy-site would
have, or constraints that would need to be put in place to prevent
"bad" rules from being entered, but I imagine that those could be
worked out.

- Atticus Ewig
User avatar
daddy-o-p40
Member
Posts: 237
Joined: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:22 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

#7

Post by daddy-o-p40 »

My two cents here....

Just point it to the General Conference Archives
"What have I done for someone today?" Thomas Monson
JamesAnderson
Senior Member
Posts: 773
Joined: Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:03 pm

#8

Post by JamesAnderson »

When mormon.org was set up, that's what mormon.com did, was redirect his domain to mormon.org, and the owner of the old mormon.com site then gave the domain to the Church to use besides.

And yes, that is a GREAT idea, simply point the domain to the archives page for this last conference, and if you keep the domain, switch it to the next conference when that is done in October.
User avatar
jmaxwilson
New Member
Posts: 37
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2007 10:47 am
Location: Orem, UT
Contact:

RSS and the meaning of Redistributon?

#9

Post by jmaxwilson »

jbh001 wrote:Doing so is likely a violation of copyright. Or did you miss that disclaimer at the end of each session of conference that no part of it can be rebroadcast (or republished) without express written permission? Your expressed intent does not fall under the "fair use" exceptions granted to journalists. Conference content is not public domain, and if you repost it, you will likely be asked by Intellectual Reserve to remove it, especially since the content is already available at lds.org.
I would like some clarification on this point, because the church now publishes official RSS Feeds of the audio and video of conference. RSS by its very design is a form of distributed content. I can listen to the MP3s or Watch the MP4s directly in my podcatcher, iTunes, or Google Reader.

In reality (non-hypothetically) I would like to put together a website for mrcolj at GeneralConference.net that simply pulled the RSS Audio and Video feeds and displayed the individual feed items in an embedded flash or quicktime player. The actual audio and video content would still be under the control of the church, and it would still being served from the church's servers to the computer of the individual.

When I have advocated for official distributable content from the church in the past, one of the concerns has been the controlling the context in which the content is displayed outside of the church's website. I understand that concern and share it.

For instance, some might be concerned that I might surround the distributed content with my own advertisements (which I would never personally to do).

However, I would ask whether the same concerns apply to advertisements on YouTube surrounding the Official LDS Youtube channel? What about when Google starts putting small ads into Google Reader? What about the numerous ads that already appear on the television and radio broadcasts of conference? If these contexts are ok, then in what way does the aggregation of RSS content on a personal website differ?

The meaning of "republish" and "redistribute" is made ambiguous by technologies like RSS. This is a point that I have heard Tom W. make in live presentations. Doesn't the fact that the church provides RSS feeds of this content automatically mean that the door is open, or at least ajar, for this kind of "redistribution"?

I want to make it clear that if the church says it doesn't want its RSS feeds used in this way I would immediately comply. But I hope that it will be considered prayerfully because I would like to do it and I already have the code available to make it happen.
User avatar
Mikerowaved
Community Moderators
Posts: 4734
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:56 am
Location: Layton, UT

#10

Post by Mikerowaved »

I would suggest asking them directly, then letting us know what you find out.

[The following is from lds.org]

QUESTIONS AND COPYRIGHT REQUESTS
For further assistance or information regarding Church copyrighted materials, you may contact the Church's Intellectual Property Office at:

Phone: 801-240-3959 or 1-800-453-3860, ext. 2-3959
Fax: 801-240-1187
E-Mail: cor-intellectualproperty@ldschurch.org.

To request use of Church copyrighted material, complete the Copyright Request Form and send it to:

Intellectual Property Office, Attention: Licensing, 50 East North Temple Street Rm 1888, Salt Lake City, Utah 84150-3011

You can also fax or e-mail the form to the fax number or e-mail address listed above.
So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
Locked

Return to “Ideas & Suggestions”