Twitter doesn't do that--they don't have the legal authority to grant a copyright to someone who is not the owner of the material--they say that what is yours remains so. Fluther is given right to reuse questions submitted, as the submitter agrees when using the site; the original author owns the copyright, even when reposted to Twitter.

I agree completely. That's why this is so frustrating--on Mahalo it looks like the question is asked by a Mahalo user, not the actual Fluther submitter.

And since they strip out the link, it's very hard to find attribution.

Yeah, but the user doesn't get real attribute on the Fluther site either, beyond a screen name and a profile that (as far as I can tell) doesn't even have a field for a personal link or bio about the author.

Most sites are essentially "stealing" content from their users -- the people who submit it and retain the copyright on it (or should, if they don't) -- so this forces me to ask the overriding question here: Who really cares?

Twitter doesn't give you copyright on anything. They just license content that you already own copyright to.

I disagree that repurposing tweets is wrong. Many twitter-based barnacle applications do just that and no one raises a stink.

And Mahalo Answers doesn't remove attribution. They link to the twitter account that posted the question (http://twitter.com/fluther) on the page. This might not be the attribution you desire (and you might be able to pursue legal action), but the attribution is there, nonetheless.

True, isn't there a difference between the tweets shown by, say, http://cursebird.com (which are clearly tweets), and repackaging a tweet as a different form of content.

If they maintained the integrity of the tweets -- complete with the links present in them, that's something else.