We own GameFlavor.com gaming network. I've seen our site posts/stories listed on a number of aggregation sites that have not requested our permission to list. While this may be good for promotion, is it okay for a site to just pillage another site's content without prior permission?
It depends on what you mean by "pillage." This has been my understanding... if the aggregation site is just quoting a short piece of your content and crediting your site as the source, then they're not doing anything wrong and don't have to ask you for permission. However, posting 100% of your content, credited or not, is not ok. As more sites do this "aggregation" thing, I'm beginning to think it isn't fair use after all. Quoting someone's words in the context of a larger topic is one thing. Building an entire site based solely on "quotes" from someone else's words is something else.
I'd be inclined to agree with you. Part quoting seems fine, especially when used in a relevant and valid way, but pulling content wholesale is definitely problematic. Particularly when your business model is based on content. I am not for policing the internet, but there should be some way for us to self regulate this.