
I made an E-book compiling the best of r/personalfinance - ankitkumar98
https://blog.bankonjuno.com/50-greatest-reddit-personal-finance-hacks/
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jrockway
You've taken a bunch of other people's copyrighted work, formatted it as a
PDF, and then ask for money for it... on your company's website? That's so
weird. I get maybe dipping into Reddit to have a couple of blog posts that
show up in search results, with the goal of getting people to click through to
your products or whatever, but actually asking for money for the e-book is a
new one.

My main takeaway is that if I walked into a Juno Bank branch, the teller would
be happy to give me a pen to fill out the application, but would first ask
"need a pen? name your price." The pen would then have a Chase logo on it,
since they got it from the bank across the street.

~~~
ankitkumar98
Hi, Ankit here. You can choose to not pay for it as well.

If you read the blog carefully, we have mentioned it very clearly- "(Pro Tip:
Type in '$0' in the price bar below and you can have the magazine for free. At
Juno, we'll never charge fees )"

~~~
smnrchrds
You cannot take Harry Potter bookes 1–7, put them together as an ePub, and put
it on your website for sale with an option to put $0. You cannot even put them
for free on your website. Why? Because it is copyrighted. Reddit comments are
copyrighted too. Without authors' permission, what you are doing is illegal.

EDIT:

Those posting content on Reddit retain the rights to their content. They give
Reddit a license to do certain things to their content, but this license is
solely to Reddit, not the general public.

If you want to do what you do legally, you have to ask for permission of every
single person whose content you have included in your ebook. Depending on the
jurisdiction, you probably can legally compile a list of links to interesting
content and publish that, but certainly not the contents themselves.

Now I am questioning whether this kind of disregard for copyright goes further
than the ebook. For example, does your software use GPL code without complying
with GPL?

~~~
0x8BADF00D
In your example, you could just add one extra page which critiques the entire
series and that would fall under fair use. You could literally put “After
reading these books it’s shit and the writer is a hack”. Totally fair game.

~~~
greggyb
Fair use is not that simple, and the original authors would most likely win a
suit against such a "critique".

Typically the defense of fair use would apply to a work that excerpts from a
larger work. Copying the original work in whole is going to be very hard to
justify.

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Zaheer
Although this is excellent, never substitute someone else's tips for your own
financial literacy.

Example: Many sites will have lists of best credit cards to have. Often they
don't take into account your personal circumstances.

For some, Bank of America likely has the best Credit Card available if you are
a Platinum Honors tier member (>$100k combined across all accounts). With this
tier, their Premium Rewards card gives me 2.62% cashback on every single
purchase. I get 5.25% casback on Gas using their Cash Rewards card.

~~~
bdcravens
Don't many of those sites also receive an affiliate commission?

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haltingproblem
I actually bought this book and then realized it was literally copy-pasted
list of posts with zero commentary, context or value-add. The money was
inconsequential and was refunded but I find it weird that the company would do
this. Even more bizarre that the employees are defending it on HN. Their
understanding of copyright law, ethics and plain decent behavior seems
severely lacking. Banks are supposed to be super conservative when it comes to
correct behavior because money, law and the feds but....

I would rather trust Comcast than these folks for banking....okay maybe not
but you get the gist.

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resoluteteeth
Do you have permission from the reddit users to include their content in your
book?

~~~
ankitkumar98
We have attributed each post to its user by linking it to the original thread
:)

~~~
greggyb
You're skirting the question every time it's asked.

The question is whether you have obtained permission from each individual
whose original work you have copied.

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decebalus1
Waiting for someone to compile an E-book with the best investment advice from
/r/wallstreetbets

~~~
klohto
Buy High, Sell Low

Do you need epub or pdf?

~~~
twox2
Actually it would be more like: "Fuck you retard. Open Robinhood, type in
random letters and buy until you max out your CCs/"

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ekabod
Can not fill the Captcha showed because it is embedded in a too small frame.

~~~
ankitkumar98
Hi, Ankit here. Try once again perhaps? Might be a one time error.

~~~
ekabod
it was fine on the 2nd try. I downloaded the ebook.

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paulcole
Why are you even giving people the option of paying for this?

~~~
Torwald
I can't respond for the OP of course, but I can tell you this: he put work in
it.

He did the job of two fine respectable professions: the editor and the
designer. That's worth something, even when he didn't write the content.

~~~
bdcravens
Did he have the permission of either Reddit or the author of those comments?

~~~
bdcravens
It would seem it's not necessary:

"By submitting user content to reddit, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual,
irrevocable, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to reproduce,
prepare derivative works, distribute copies, perform, or publicly display your
user content in any medium and for any purpose, including commercial purposes,
and _to authorize others to do so_. (emphasis mine)

~~~
detaro
> _of either Reddit_

they'd need at least.

~~~
bdcravens
True. After re-reading it, it's clear that I can't take content, but Reddit
could authorize me to; Reddit's permission is still necessary.

------
CawCawCaw
IP theft issues notwithstanding, how many of these 50 great tips assume that
the reader is American?

