RedMonk Analyst James Governor apparently received a cease and desist letter from Gartner. Not for publishing a Magic Quadrant or copying and pasting content from a proprietary report, mind you, but for posting a HYPERLINK to Gartner's report on his blog.
Its about time, I guess. Last Thursday I received an email, strangely enough from Gartner's Vendor Relations department, asking me to remove a link from monkchips, because it apparently constituted "unauthorised use".
So wait a second. I can't post a URL to a Gartner site? What exactly would be the penalty for doing so?
Vendor relations? I am not a vendor.
Shouldn't it be the responsibility of Gartner, and in this case SAS, to protect their intellectual property? I mean that's what firewalls and registration mechanisms are for, isn't it?
And just when I thought Gartner was finally starting to "get" this whole blogging thing...
redmonk gartner jamesgovernor monkchips blogging hyperlink woodrow
Oddly reminiscent of the Microsoft/Ticketmaster lawsuit in 1997. Is the Web repeating itself?
http://www.salon.com/may97/media/media970506.html
Posted by: Niel Robertson | July 13, 2006 at 03:17 PM
I'd be curious to know what sort of legal legs they're standing on with that "request." What violation/infringement is James commiting? Unauthorized use doesn't make sense in this case.
Posted by: Mark Crofton | July 13, 2006 at 09:55 AM
yeah I said some nice things about the Gartner blogs recently too...
Posted by: James Governor | July 12, 2006 at 09:23 AM