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• "...by publishing RSS feeds "the owners of the content are inviting you to use what they've written". Well I can tell you that I am 100% NOT inviting you to re-use my writing."

  Richard: Yes, you are. It's a syndication feed, designed from the start to allow content from Site A to be distributed by Site B. Don't let the huckster sales pitches cloud the issue... at least on the surface, these apps seem to be legit.

  A question for Hector, if he's reading: does your app obey robots.txt? Do you have a stable user-agent string that someone like Richard can disallow? That kind of thing is a quick and easy way to demonstrate good faith.

  Posted by: Roger Benningfield | June 3, 2005 5:48 PM





• Don't take my words out of context Roger. You left out the last, vital sentence: "I'm inviting you to read it, not profit from it." The latter is what I meant by 're-use' and I believe that's what SuperFeedSystem meant by 'use' as well. Their software clearly encourages people to 'use' other peoples RSS feeds for commercial means.

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 3, 2005 7:10 PM





• While I agree it's not nice being ripped I have to say that you maybe shouldn't put stuff up on the Web you don't want people to use and link to. Although I do agree that if they use your actual words they should really be sending traffic back to you. The only one's I've seen do this DO send the traffic back, in fact. They run the feed on their page and people reading the feed see the authors name and links that are in the feed. I've seen Zeldman and others on such sites most likely without consent.

  But that's the core of it. The Web is built on hyperlinking to information freely.

  It's only my 2 cents though and it's a curley one - copyright of the user vs the spirit of free information.

  If it's simply about someone making money off your words then just don't do it. Put it into a book and sell it as treeware.

  Great arguments though :) I linked to it via Scoble as it relates to a post I put up only yesterday lol. Cheers Richard.

  Posted by: nortypig | June 3, 2005 10:46 PM





• Roger: Offering a syndication feed doesn't grant any legal rights to reuse its content, beyond fair use. Though many people offer RSS with the intent that it be republished, others may be interested solely in seeing their content read in newsreaders.

  The last time this came up for discussion, I added a Creative Commons license on my weblog to make my intent clear.

  I think there ought to be a tag you can put in an RSS feed that shows you have no interest in being republished, even for non-commercial, no-alteration reasons. Perhaps this:

  [creativeCommons:license]none[/creativeCommons:license]

  It would put more of a responsibility on RSS software to read the tag and abide by it.

  Posted by: Rogers Cadenhead | June 3, 2005 11:16 PM





• This seems another case where the law lags technology (by a century or two). There's a huge grey area. I think most people would support *useful* republication, like the topic-specific aggregated blogs (e.g. http://planetrdf.com), or filtering like PubSub searches provide. Is that fair use? How is it different from simple republication?

  I personally don't mind my material being republished, as long as there's attribution (actually I'm not all that bothered about that). I have an RSS feed to make it easier for people to access what I write. If someone wants to put some of this stuff in a sidebar on another site, what's the big deal? I would be more worried about moves to prevent republication than reuse by spammish sites.

  Posted by: Danny | June 3, 2005 11:39 PM





• The biggest problem our clients at SuperFeedSystem.com and other similar services face is that sometimes it may difficult to ascertain the intentions of the publisher of the feeds since most publishers have not even considered the need for a usage policy. This is a problem because while some publishers do not mind any usage of their published material others may only wish their content to be viewed by end-users. We advise our clients to follow any usage policy presented by the publisher. If they choose to use a feed with no published usage policy we advise our clients to remove the content from their sites if they are contacted by the publisher and asked to remove the content.

  Our support team at SuperFeedSystem.com has been approached by several clients and asked about stripping feeds of links or certain other content. We find this to be unethical and have also been advised by our attorneys that as long as our software only translates the feed from one format into another without modification of the content our service should be legal. We have also been advised and make it clear to our clients it is up to them to make certain that they are using the materials in an appropriate manner.

  As for potentially misleading statements in our sales material it may be possible that our sales team has gotten a little overzealous with the promotional material and some of the content may be viewed as misleading. We will have to look into this and make changes to our sales strategy if we find that to be the case.

  Posted by: Hector Jimenez | June 4, 2005 12:11 AM





• "Don't take my words out of context Roger."

  Richard: My apologies... I didn't think I did. Are you trying to establish a distinction between "use" and "display"?

  "Offering a syndication feed doesn't grant any legal rights to reuse its content, beyond fair use."

  Rogers: I disagree. If I stand on a street corner, passing out pamphlets and encouraging folks to pass them along, then I am most certainly granting them the right to redistribute my content. Publishing a syndication feed is the web equivalent.

  But I'll grant you that the legalities are murky. What shouldn't be murky is a sense of responsibility and fair play, both on the publishing and consuming ends.

  "I think there ought to be a tag you can put in an RSS feed..."

  The problems with that have been well-established... "republishing" is so wide open to interpretation that the tag would be effectively useless.

  In contrast, robots.txt is pretty unambiguous. You either disallow an app, or you don't.

  Posted by: Roger Benningfield | June 4, 2005 1:49 AM





• When I first saw RSS feeds, I thought that was the whole point - that content owners were offering their headlines to others to publish on their site. Then, I saw some of the media outlets who were publishing feeds had terms and conditions on how their feeds could be used. Some said it was cool to put on your site, some said for personal use only, etc. However, not many bloggers post these kind of terms, which is true even today. Therefore, I'm sure many people assume they can do whatever they want with the feed.

  I have to put it on the content provider here. If you publish a feed, obviously making it easy for others to republish your content, you should explicitly publish the terms of use. Isn't there an optional copyright element for RSS, as well?

  This whole stink is honestly a bit curious to me. OF COURSE this was going to happen! This is why most people don't publish their full posts - here is a teaser, for more come to my site.

  So, remix, but just for personal enjoyment?

  Posted by: Brady Joslin | June 4, 2005 1:50 AM





• I found a bunch of other Websites that do the same thing. They take your content and republish it with ads. Here's a partial list of what I've already found.

  -Google
  -Yahoo
  -MSN
  -Feedster
  -Technorati
  -kbSearch

  Posted by: Randy Charles Morin | June 4, 2005 2:06 AM





• Welcome to Web 2.0!

  This is a wake-up call to all newly-minted writers (bloggers) out there, including myself. I realize now that I need a quick and thorough explanation of fair-use, creative commons, copyright, and all the rest.

  Here's a link to Stanford Library fair use resources: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
  Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/

  Posted by: Joshua Porter | June 4, 2005 2:11 AM





• I can't think of any place where Google, Yahoo, or the other listed sites runs full content from another publisher alongside their own ads.

  "I disagree. If I stand on a street corner, passing out pamphlets and encouraging folks to pass them along, then I am most certainly granting them the right to redistribute my content. Publishing a syndication feed is the web equivalent."

  The key phrase in that paragraph is "encouraging folks to pass them along." Where in Richard's RSS feed can you find him encouraging people to do this?

  Posted by: Rogers Cadenhead | June 4, 2005 2:18 AM





• " Where in Richard's RSS feed can you find him encouraging people to do this?"

  Um, the very definition of RSS allows this.

  Listen, to put up an RSS feed into the wild and then complain when someone doesn't use it exactly as you want is contradictory. You can't have it both ways, and you relinquish control the minute you make the RSS feed live. That's the nature of the beast.

  Posted by: Ed Roman | June 4, 2005 2:24 AM





• "Um, the very definition of RSS allows this."

  Good luck using that defense in court.

  "... you relinquish control the minute you make the RSS feed live."

  Oh, please. Have you ever read title 17 (or the copyright laws for any country)? The whole point of having a copyright law is to control how *published* works can be used. Arguing that "once you've publish something, you relinquish control" is a great way to tell the world that you don't have a fucking clue.

  Posted by: Observer | June 4, 2005 3:08 AM





• Rogers,
  Why does it have to be full-content and ads side-by-side? Clearly Google runs ads with your content, not full, partial.

  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=rogers+cadenhead+site%3Acadenhead.org

  Question, do these services provide hyperlinks back to the originating blogs? That might be a differentiator.

  Posted by: Randy Charles Morin | June 4, 2005 3:29 AM





• "While I give credit to Hector for taking the time to respond, I think his argument is akin to gun lobbyists who say: guns don't kill, people do."

  Or akin to we technologists saying to the RIAA, "file sharing apps don't pirate music, people do!" Looks there lots of temptations with all these loaded guns laying around.

  Posted by: Eric | June 4, 2005 4:33 AM





• There is a way to express a CC license with a link, using rel="license" http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/RelLicense

  If someone is republishing your work in violation of the copyright license you have recourse to a DMCA takedown notice to get their ISP to remove it.

  http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID130

  Posted by: Kevin Marks | June 4, 2005 4:52 AM





• In response to a few questions which have been posed here:

  By default the SuperFeedSystem.com service does provide search engine friendly hyperlinks back to the publisher. This not only serves to give credit for the work but also helps increase the publishers visibility to the general web audience as well as increase the publishers link popularity with the search engines. It is against our terms of service to remove these hyperlinks.

  We currently do not support robots.txt nor do we have a user-agent string that someone could block. However we will look into building in support for these type of systems and thank you all very much for the ideas.

  Our programmers are also currently working on giving our clients the option of only using an excerpt with a hyperlink back to the publisher instead of the full text. We are doing this to allow our customers more flexibility when using our system while at the same time remaining compliant with the wishes of the various publishers.

  Posted by: Hector Jimenez | June 4, 2005 5:33 AM





• "Arguing that "once you've publish something, you relinquish control" is a great way to tell the world that you don't have a fucking clue."

  Ah, the enlightened discussion of the blogosphere. And losers like yourself wonder why they can't get dates on a Friday night.

  What is the nature of RSS -- versus a regular Web site -- if not to push a version of your work out to the wider world? The notion of syndication (which is, after all, one of the "S"s in RSS) is to allow the use by others.

  If you want to put some conditions on the syndication, that's OK. But getting all pissy about this won't help.

  And if you don't want others using your works, then don't syndicate them!

  Posted by: Ed Roman | June 4, 2005 5:40 AM





• A simple Creative Commons license will shutdown these ridiculous thieves.

  Is it any more complicated than that?

  Posted by: Evan Erwin | June 4, 2005 5:43 AM





• The fact that RSS is ideal for syndication and was introduced for syndication does not confer the legal right to republish an RSS feed. If a newspaper service like Creators Syndicate published its columnists in RSS 2.0 format, the mere publication of the files would not confer permission to run the column in full on your own site.

  You can argue that there's nothing wrong with assuming that an RSS feed was meant for reuse, given that most publishers seem to feel that way, but Richard's focus was on legal ramifications, not ethical or moral issues.

  "Why does it have to be full-content and ads side-by-side? Clearly Google runs ads with your content, not full, partial."

  Your Google example is clearly fair use, because the content that runs alongside ads is a very brief excerpt.

  Posted by: Rogers Cadenhead | June 4, 2005 6:15 AM





• "The fact that RSS is ideal for syndication and was introduced for syndication does not confer the legal right to republish an RSS feed. If a newspaper service like Creators Syndicate published its columnists in RSS 2.0 format, the mere publication of the files would not confer permission to run the column in full on your own site."

  That's a straw-man argument.

  The solution is simple: post a copyright notice in the beginning of your feed allowing for personal noncommercial use. Elegant, simple, legally enforceable.

  By the way, that would also put Feedster out of business and make RSS feeds worthless for My Yahoo. Watch out for unintended side effects.

  Posted by: Ed Rusch | June 4, 2005 6:41 AM





• These guys have been driving me CRAZY!

  This is no more than simple plagiarism of web content - obviously illegal. RSS just makes it easier to get access to that content and its structure, and to reflow it for your own site's purposes. The only solution out there I know of is copyscape.com which searches for copies of your content online - I've also used it with RSS feeds and other XML-formatted data and it seems to work just fine. I've taken a couple of sites down based on what I found. You can also do a simple Google search for a slice of your content but it's quite a bit more work.

  Posted by: Barry | June 4, 2005 6:53 AM





• I should also point out that it is actually in SuperFeedSystem.com's best interest to be a good member of this community as my partners and I have invested heavily in creating the software and infrastructure behind SuperFeedSystem.com and we benefit from publishers sharing their work with our clients. We do not wish to create an atmosphere in which people are just outright stealing content from other people without any regards as to what the publisher intended or giving credit when credit is due as this would lead to more publishers not wanting to share their content and would essentially kill our business model.

  On a more personal note I have devoted a lot of my free time over the last year to this project and have learned a lot about the Internet as it relates to web feeds and the blogoshpere community in particular and would like to thank those people who have helped us and even the people who speak out against us as they all have helped create a better service for our clients. SuperFeedSystem.com was not my full time job as my technical area of expertise is in computer networking and I was originally brought into the project to design the hardware infrastructure behind the scenes as it relates to network, server, and storage (SAN) hardware configurations. However, as has been the case in the Information Technology world in the last few years due to an unstable economy, I was laid off at the beginning of this year and have ended up working on this project full time over the last few months and have now become the voice of this service. This is a job which can be both frustrating and rewarding all at the same time. Thank you all for your input and keep the suggestions coming.

  Posted by: Hector Jimenez | June 4, 2005 6:53 AM





• "RSS just makes it easier to get access to that content and its structure, and to reflow it for your own site's purposes."

  That's a little disengenuous, though, isn't it? I mean, the whole point of RSS is to send a version out to anyone who requests it and who wants to monitor a site without reading the whole thing. I mean, what's the difference between reading a RSS feed at Feedster, an RSS feed sidebar on Slashdot and a RSS feed at SuperFeedSystem? No one seems to be able to tell me the difference.

  There are tons of problems with the RSS model from a social viewpoint. Now we're seeing them.

  Posted by: Ed Roman | June 4, 2005 7:07 AM





• I've thought about the same issues on ipodnews.com . I limit the news item to 500 words, link only to the site that provided the feed (links in the feed itself are stripped), mention the feed name. is that enough?

  Posted by: matthew | June 4, 2005 7:24 AM





• Thanks everyone for your robust discussion. One of the drawbacks of living on the other side of the world is that I'm usually sleeping when these discussions take place :-) So to address a few points I've seen in the comments:

  My beef is with the 'fair use' part of people using my RSS feed. So I'm not talking about search engines or RSS Aggregators, because they are obviously fair use of my feeds. Someone who uses my RSS feed to populate their *website* is not, IMHO, practising fair use (and note I'm not talking about a simple sidebar, the software we're discussing encourages people to populate their actual websites with our RSS feeds!).

  OK fair use is a grey area and also subjective to a degree. Part of the problem is that none of this has been tested in a court of law yet. I know one thing for sure, I will be checking out the Fair Use provisions that Josh pointed to (comment 9)!

  Also, I'm glad Rogers was here to push back against the people who said that syndication automatically entitles people to use your RSS feed in any manner they choose. Clearly that is NOT the case - syndication is a means to distribute one's content, but the actual content itself is subject to the same copyright and fair use laws as, say, a book. I think Rogers summed it up extremely well.

  Finally, I appreciate Hector joining in the discussion. You seem like a reasonable person Hector, so can I ask you to firstly review the words on the SuperFeedSystem website. I think the main reason I found it offensive is that it assumes RSS feeds are "free". Well they're not - I put a lot of work into the content of my RSS feeds and I'm not willing to stand by and let people "use" it indiscriminately. If it's fair use (e.g. you're an RSS Aggregator, or a search engine, or you want to remix it for non-commercial means), then I'm fine with it. Otherwise I'm not.

  What's fair use? Well I guess that's the crux of the issue and I don't have an easy answer. But I have my own feelings about what is fair use and what is not - and I don't think your software (or others like it) encourages fair use of other peoples content.

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 4, 2005 11:06 AM





• "So I'm not talking about search engines or RSS Aggregators, because they are obviously fair use of my feeds."

  But isn't a SuperFeedSystem nothing more than an aggregator? You're obviously having some problems drawing a line here. Realistically, what's the difference between SuperFeedSystem and Feedster? It seems to me there's some sort of snobbism here: you simply don't like SuperFeedSystem because it offends some sensibility but you think Feedster is cool. Both are aggregators; both have advertising. Same with Yahoo. Why is Feedster "obviously" fair use and SuperFeedSystem not?

  If you're worried about the fair use of the feed, why not scale back the feed to where you're comfortable with everyone using? It seems you're trying to put the burden on the aggregator and have them try to figure out what you want instead of you just doing it. Don't want full text? Then don't publish full text!

  Posted by: Ed Roman | June 4, 2005 11:24 AM





• There are a bunch of people re-displaying Webjay.org feeds for their own reasons. This bugs me but I don't waste time fighting with them. You're better off finding ways to profit from jerks than trying to make them disappear.

  As an example of how I do that, my biz model for webjay (to the limited degree that I have one) is about increasing the exposure of a song. When other people republish my feeds, they're multiplying my impact and ultimately making me more effective at increasing exposure.

  For yourself, Richard, ads in your feed might have the same effect.

  Posted by: Lucas Gonze | June 4, 2005 11:39 AM





• Thanks for the suggestions Lucas.

  Ed, SuperFeedSystem is not an aggregator like Bloglines or Feedster. SuperFeedSystem does this (and I quote): "Use other people's information to have constant, new, expert articles auto-added to your sites."

  I don't know why I need to keep repeating myself, but it's not about syndication or what format the feed is. It's about the *content* inside of the feed and what is fair use of that.

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 4, 2005 1:30 PM





• ""Use other people's information to have constant, new, expert articles auto-added to your sites.""

  Um, exactly what do you think a feed on slashdot looks like? Or what a Feedster feed is? Feedster and My Yahoo use RSS feeds to have new, expert articles auto-added to their sites. Feedster, My Yahoo and SuperFeedSystem do nothing more than offer to a viewer the information you make available on your feed -- they add no data or misrepresent where the information comes from. From what it looks like, SuperFeedSystem is simply a way for someone to set up their own individual aggregator site. Exactly what terms of your feed are they violating? Fair use? I can see your entire feed on Feedster, and I don't hear you companining about fair use when it comes to Feedster.

  You keep repeating there's a difference, but you can never say what the specific difference is. I don't need to be snide, but if you can't explain the difference, then maybe you need to rethink the jihad.

  Posted by: Ed Roman | June 4, 2005 2:38 PM





• Oh don't be ridiculous Ed, I've explained several times now what the difference is. Enough already.

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 4, 2005 2:47 PM





• Richard raises some very good points about fair use, but I think the fellow that suggested the mere act of syndication implies intent, is right. If you syndicate content (lacking any specific and published constraints), be prepared for unintended consequences to happen, especially with XML content.

  Making anything freely available as XML implies (and encourages) alternative use cases to emerge. SuperFeeds is simply one pattern of many possible ways that Richard may become annoyed.

  I don't disagree with Richard's right to police the use of his content, but I also believe SuperFeeds has every right to persue the utilization content whose authors intend for it to be used in a variety of ways.

  At Blogsite (http:blogsite.com), we provide a similar capability - aggregating feeds within a collection of blogs to create a portal-like experience for content consumers. However, we require that each client obtain permission from the authors of such content. Are these use-cases for profit? In a way I suppose, but the authors of the feeds agree with the presentation format and understand the benefits of authorizing such utilization. We also display all meta-data in the feeds (if present) including copyright message, author name, email address, and even any embedded images. It's amazing how few actually use the specifications in RSS to include use-case restrictions. Take - for example - Richard's FeedBurner page for his own RSS feed - it says:

  "A message from the feed publisher: This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site."

  Hmmm - that's pretty clear - this feed is open for any use on a Web site. If that's not what you intend Richard, you should start by changing it to reflect what you really intend. ;-)

  In cases where RSS content is considered too valuable to cast out for free and open use, authors should consider a secure RSS model for distribution. We've done a lot of work in this area and have perfected the ability to provide a permissions model all the way down to each RSS item. This idea makes it possible to have a feed designed for both "personal reader use", and "business interchange" use. I'm sure Hector would gladly implement http authentication to access content that *is* intended for his audienc(es).

  In my view, this thread is a natural progression that leads to an awareness of new business models and a shift in the way we think about syndication. Hector seems sincere and probably willing to share a few bucks (or arbitrate micro-payments) to facilitate the syndication of premium content. It's not rocket-science to manage the interchange of content (we do it all the time with financial content).

  So let's stop complaining and design some smart systems that benefit everyone. ;-)

  Posted by: Bill French | June 4, 2005 2:50 PM





• Well, no, you really haven't explained the difference between Feedster, My Yahoo and SuperFeed. Each uses your RSS feed to create content for a Web page. Each sells ads on that page.

  If you do not want your feed to be displayed on a Web page, then you need to specify that. And be prepared to say goodbye to Feedster and My Yahoo. I'd love to hear what condition you'll place on your RSS feed that allows use by Feedster and My Yahoo and not for SuperFeed. As your own terms state:

  "A message from the feed publisher: This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site."

  How is SuperFeed breaking these terms of condition? You've not answered that, either.

  Posted by: Ed Rusch | June 4, 2005 2:59 PM





• Bill, thanks for your thoughtful comment. Re this message on my Feedburner feed:

  "A message from the feed publisher: This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site."

  That's a very good point and I've forwarded it on to Feedburner to see if they can re-word that. My suggestion:

  "A message from the feed publisher: This is an XML content feed. It is
  intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site,
  ***subject to copyright and fair use.***"

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 4, 2005 3:04 PM





• And I'll add to that, my RSS feed is copyrighted (see View Source on my Feedburner feed).

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 4, 2005 3:06 PM





• On a practical level, exactly what "syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use" really mean? They are not the same thing. If you're invoking copyright, then no one -- including Feedster and My Yahoo -- can use the feed. The exception to copyright is fair use. If you're invoking fair use, then Feedster and My Yahoo cannot use your feed because they are not commenting on your feed or using it as a platform for further discussion. There is no fair use provision for what they do: directly use your feed on another ad-supported Web page.

  In both cases, your proposed change then has the unintended side effect of telling Feedster and My Yahoo not to pass along your feed on their pages.

  I'm really not trying to be difficult, but I do think you're being fairly unreasonable here and expecting others to read your mind about how you intend them to use your feed.

  Posted by: Ed Roman | June 4, 2005 3:11 PM





• The Feedburner guys informed me that I can edit that message, which I've done now. I may change that to a Creative Commons copyright in future, but until I investigate that further I've made it a full copyright.

  Ed, I've explained several times now that SuperFeedSystem IS NOT an Aggregator or search engine. If you continue with this line of argument, I'll start deleting your comments and ban you from commenting on my blog.

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 4, 2005 3:42 PM





• The difference between what Richard and Ed are saying (which are actually different lines that happen to intersect):

  Ed is saying that SuperFeed creates an aggragator just like Feedster.

  Richard is saying that SuperFeed is intended as a plagiarism tool, because the adverts suggest you can pretend the content is your own work.

  That's how it seems anyway. And the mistake is easy. The adverts even border on that. But they don't say that you should plagiarize. Only that your site can benefit from the professional work of others.

  Of course they do suggest a new idea to the scurrilous and unscrupulous cyber-squatters out there hoping to make a buck off things like mis-typed domain names.

  But it must be admitted that this is only a tool, even if its advertisement is suggestive of misuse.

  Posted by: Opti Musamans | June 4, 2005 5:20 PM





• LOL, then don't publish a feed!

  If you are complaining about feeds being republished with ads around them, you had better start crying to all the search engines too. They don't just use your feeds, but they "steal" your content right off your pages, post it to their so called "results" pages and then plaster ads all around it. They make a hell of a lot more money off your content than any webmasters who happen to reuse your feeds.

  So it's OK for them to do it... but not web publishers right?

  Puh-lease, get real already!

  Posted by: LOL | June 4, 2005 6:14 PM





• Gee, OK - that's the answer to all my problems then. Don't publish a feed. Why didn't I think of that? It's so obvious now. Thank you "LOL" for making the most intelligent, concise and "real" comment so far.

  p.s. for the final time: I am *not* talking about aggregators or search engines! I am talking about products that encourage people to use other peoples content to populate their own websites.

  If I see any more inane comments about aggregators or search engines, I'll be deleting them and banning the IP addresses.

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 4, 2005 8:29 PM





• p.p.s. yes I'm a grumpy bastard right now. I have the flu, if that's any excuse.

  So let me put it more politely... if you wish to continue the conversation here, then please focus on the the main issue of my post: what to do about software products that not only enable, but actively encourage their customers to use other peoples RSS content to populate their websites?

  Fair warning: I'm going to delete any further comments that stray from this central topic (especially if they mention Aggregators or search engines).

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 4, 2005 10:03 PM





• My partners and I have scheduled a meeting with our marketing and support teams on Monday to discuss possible improvements to the SuperFeedSystem.com marketing materials including our web site. We will also discuss ways of further educating our clients on copyright and fair use issues.

  Posted by: Hector Jimenez | June 5, 2005 3:18 AM





• RSS is content rendered into an XML format specifically for the purpose of syndication.

  I say that as a prelude to the following question: how the heck do you suppose RSS feeds are to be read at all, if not captured and displayed on some remote site?

  A blog reader, you say?

  Well, why not hop on down to Bloglines.com and explain the difference between Bloglines and a blog reader.

  The point is, the encoding and distribution of content in RSS is explicit, de facto *permission * to copy the content and post it elsewhere.

  Because there's no other use for it!!!

  Now - if you want to keep your content to yourselves, that's fine. Post it on your website and we'll promise not to copy it anywhere.

  We probably won't read it, either, but that's your problem.

  But if you syndicate your content, rendering it in such a way that guarantees any use violates your copyright, don't run home crying because people use the feed as intended.

  All this is to say: we worked long and hard to create a content sharing network - those of you who want to step in and ruin it with your copyright idiocy: go home.

  Posted by: Stephen Downes | June 5, 2005 2:04 PM





• "The point is, the encoding and distribution of content in RSS is explicit, de facto *permission * to copy the content and post it elsewhere."

  NO, you're absolutely WRONG!!!!

  And you brought up aggregators again, when I specifically said this ISN'T ABOUT AGGREGATORS!!!!! How many times do I have to say it!!??

  But I'm going to let your comment stand Stephen, even though that last sentence is quite rude, because I've read your stuff before and I have respect for your opinion. I just don't happen to agree with you on this one.

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 5, 2005 3:53 PM





• I can see what Rich is saying, but it's sort of disheartening for small-time RSS newbies like myself.

  Is this a prelude to not being able to post a "cool" article on my website, even though I give a return link? Sometimes I'm torn with the concept of "who do I give credit to?". Even though I may write a completely different summary of the tech information, do I give credit to the person who provided the link or the original tech article writer...or both?

  And what about if I do decide to post an article "as-is" with a return link to boot? How many times can a bit of tech information be re-written? Nearly a third of the feeds I am signed up with give me the same info.

  I've never used any of Rich's articles, but now I definitely know that I won't. I would think that most people would get the hint from this conversation.

  Please keep life simple for newbies like me. RSS has been fun so far without the legal mumbo jumbo.

  Posted by: RSS Newbie | June 5, 2005 5:44 PM





• I hear what you're saying, RSS Newbie. Just to clarify my own position, this is what I wrote in my original article:

  "I'm absolutely not talking about fellow bloggers who re-post an occasional post of mine - I'm specifically talking about sites that brazenly re-post everything and are doing it for commercial purposes."

  So you can see I'm being very clear about what I'm talking about. It's people in this thread who bring up aggregators, search engines and the like that are confusing the issue.

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 5, 2005 5:54 PM





• Hi Richard,

  here's a solution from bloglogic, expose what they're doing to their readers in your RSS feeds.

  http://www.bloglogic.net/2005/06/stop-stealing-my-stuff/

  He's irritated at it happening too and has modified a wordpress file (wp-rss2.php), so it includes a visible copyright notice in every post in the feed. So if any of you readers have wordpress blogs they might want to use this.

  "First thing your (RSS) readers will see is your excerpt from your post followed by a horisontal line and this underneath:

  ì© 2005 YOUR-BLOG-URL.com This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If youíre not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site youíre looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact YOUR-CONTACT-DETAILS so we can take legal action immediately.î

  That'll get their attention.

  Pete Quily

  Posted by: Pete Quily | June 5, 2005 9:01 PM





• (Gee.... do we really want to create a world where everything comes with a EULA???Think about it folks! lol) Free Software, Free Hardware, Free Music and yes... Free Knowledge)

  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
  http://www.opencollector.org/Whyfree/
  http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp.html
  http://www.hipatia.info/

  Ok....now that I am on my soapbox (lol)....without mentioning the words that Richard has listed as "taboo" ;o) here is how I see things. You voice a concern/complaint about a new "service" that allows someone to scour a list of feeds and then use these feeds (with/without the appropriate links back to source) to "create" a "unique and seperate" web page filled with any number of feed streams. Pete's solution seems to cover your concerns. This would clearly show that ANY service, or site, that uses any of your feeds (outside of an RSS reader) would clearly be in violation of your clearly posted copyright (and the key to copyright IS a clearly posted copyright. As others have posted, some honest copyright abiding person may unwittingly use your material without a clear,concise, and plainly visible policy or copyright notice. To place such notice in the source may not be considered clearly posted, due to the beforementioned "service" posting the feed. This service may allow (I am unfamiliar with SuperFeedSystem so don't know what can/can't be done with it) something similiar to WYSIWYG/Drag and Drop (put this feed here or put x number of feeds into this template etc) page design negating the newbie/experienced designer from ever viewing your source or feeling the need to view it). Pete's comment seems to suit your intent as I understand it. Which intent seems to be to disallow for-profit sites (and/or non-profit personal sites) from using your feeds to help populate a web page. Thereby keeping your content under your control while stopping other less ingenious or creative peoples from profiting from your "IP" and hard work. Am I correct so far??

  If I am, then this would seem to validate Ed's comments and RSS Newbie's concerns. The difference being that as copyright holder you are allowed to grant usage to whomever you see fit, for what ever reason you feel like doing so. This would allow certain sites (for-profit or non-profit) to use your content (within the framework of your agreement with them) while prohibiting (due to the beforementioned copyright) what some may consider to be an exactly similiar site from using ANY of your content in any way shape or form.

  Now in the "real" world once a company/site owner/enthusiast (who is using your feeds to either solely,or assist, in populating their site) sees this notice they will do 1 of 4 things:
  1) stop showing your feed
  2) decide that their use of your feed to poulate their site (regardless of their profit motives and any ads/banners they prettily bundle around your feed) is FAIR USE (even though they are not using it for commentary/satiric or whatever others may deem fair use purposes) and continue using it until they are provided notice to cease and desist (which still may not convince them to stop using it--forcing you to sue)
  3) Contact you for approval to use your feed(s)and work out a suitable arangement for said use
  4) Disregard this copyright and do what they want to anyways

  In reality however, this will probably result in a form of what Stephen said: nobody except those who either personally visit your site or have you subscribed in a reader will see your content. Because certainly the big companies that currently post excerpts of news and feeds won't have the time nor inclination to work out the legal contract that grants them the right to use your feed, when they can just as easily give someone else the attention without worrying about infringments and such.

  (Now at the risk of you deleting the rest of this post and not letting your viewers judge for themselves.....)

  however, after visiting your homepage I find that you too are using other sites to help fill up your content (this page here...http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002740.php) now I do not know whether you have permission to use this/any content from this other site or not, heck I dont even know if this content was copyrighted by the other site. But the point is, here YOU are doing something that you complain of thers doing. I saw Ads on your site... so you must either be making money off this content or saving money by an AD supported free site service (either way money saved is money earned! lol) Granted you linked back to the other site, but if I list some of your feeds (and some of other people feeds) to help populate my site and link back to you/them... how different is that from you (and countless others) doing the SAME thing????

  --For the record: I have no site, or any interests financial or otherwise in any website. I use the above analogy simply for creative purposes.

  And since we are all so justly and rightly concerned about how our IP and creative works, thoughts and products will end up being used by others I supply the following:

  NOTICE: The above material is copyrighted June 5th 2005 by "new to RSS but not new to thinking". The owner of the above material grants this site owner a license to use this material only on the associated page it was posted to by the content owner. Under no circumstances, should site owner, use the above content in any form other than in the context that the content owner placed said content in. Site owner may, at his discretion, edit the above content. However if edited, site owner must clearly state where such editing occurred, and cannot remove this copyright or change any sentence structure, words, punctuation or ultimate contrived meanings from how the content owner phrased said content. This license is granted indefinately, and site owner may perpetually post above content within the context it was provided, as well as archiving the above content for as long as site owner wishes. This license of usuage may be revoked if site owner violates the above listed terms of usuage.
  Content Owner makes no claims as to the benefit, suitablility for any cause, or appropriateness of the Content, and site owner assumes all legal and financial responsibility for his/her FREE use of the above Content (including any storage fees, transfer fees, set up fees, bandwith fees, juristictional issues that may arise from content being viewed by persons under different laws and religious preferences and any/all reasonable or unreasonable costs associated with site owners use of above content.) Content Owner expresses no waranty to the above Content and neither implies, nor warrants, that Content is fit for any purpose--whether stated or not. This notice of copyright is included, and is copyrighted by, the beforementioned copyright. If others wish to use any or all of this copyright notice they are free to do so,and are free to alter said notice as they see fit, as long as they grant this same license of usage to their readers, and that this notice is not included in commercial offerings that will result in the user's compensation- financial or otherwise.

  Posted by: njew to RSS but not new to thinking | June 6, 2005 7:17 AM





• Stephen: "The point is, the encoding and distribution of content in RSS is explicit, de facto *permission * to copy the content and post it elsewhere."

  Data formats do not have built-in copyright licenses. When content of any kind is fixed in tangible form, it's copyrighted, whether that content is formatted as RSS, HTML, radio waves, print, or smoke signals.

  Legally, the fact that Richard offers a file formatted as RSS does not in any way affect his copyright on the work. (For this reason, I encourage people who want their RSS feeds to be shared widely -- as I do -- to use a Creative Commons license to make your wishes explicit.)

  The first question you ask shows how far you've veered off course. You could just as easily ask this: how the heck do you suppose HTML pages are to be read at all, if not captured and displayed on some remote browser? HTML is parseable too, as Greasemonkey and the Google Toolbar demonstrate. Would you then suggest that HTML has a de facto license for republication?

  Posted by: Rogers Cadenhead | June 6, 2005 9:10 AM





• njew to RSS but not new to thinking, while I admire the epic and witty nature of your comment - once again you have mis-represented what I am saying. As I've said a million times now, I'm specifically referring to software that encourages people to use other peoples RSS feeds to populate their websites. As I mentioned a few comments above:

  "I'm absolutely not talking about fellow bloggers who re-post an occasional post of mine - I'm specifically talking about sites that brazenly re-post everything and are doing it for commercial purposes."

  So again I repeat: I'm not talking about quoting sites on the occasional post (as was the example you took from my blog), I'm not even talking about bloggers who re-post entire posts of mine every now and again.

  I'm talking about software that enables people to use my RSS feed to populate their websites. It's that specific case I consider to be unfair use.

  Most of the commentators in this thread have twisted my words and extended the meaning of what I said - in order to make me out as Metallica in the Napster case, or to suit their ivory tower view of the world, or just generally to be a nuisance.

  p.s. I deleted the comment by Airport Reader as it was off-topic (search engines).

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 6, 2005 10:21 AM





• Rogers: " When content of any kind is fixed in tangible form, it's copyrighted, whether that content is formatted as RSS, HTML, radio waves, print, or smoke signals." This is exactly correct. So the problem is now revealed for the ugly truth that it is. Copyright infringment is rampant all over the net. Under copyright law, just because I give credit to the source from whom I have decided to reference doesn't make what I have done (by using this material without permission from said copyright holder) any less criminal. Stealing is Stealing. The only thing that protects the thief is the desire, or lack of, to prosecute for the unauthorized use of said copyrighted material (which as you have correctly pointed out is everything once placed im format). Or just what recourse is there and under what circumstances?

  Now in terms of actual recourse for this infringment: "Although copyright attaches upon fixation, you cannot actually sue someone for infringing your copyright until you have registered your work with the Copyright Office. And if you register your work within three months from the date of first publication, or at least prior to the date of infringement, you can collect statutory damages from the infringer. Otherwise, you are stuck with actual damages, which depending upon the situation, may be only nominal."

  So unless said copyright is paid for, and thereby registered, there really is no legal recourse except for "Peer" recourse.

  This doesn't change the fact that whether there is legal recourse or not that copyright infringment is stealing. Now I may not personally care if, after the fact, I discover you have been stealing my copyrighted, albeit unregistered copyrighted, material. But that doesn't change the fact that you are still a thief (I use the term you not in reference to anyone in particular just as a pronoun).

  And so the vast majority of the World Wide Web is filled with thieves and copyright infringers, not just on P2P et al, but on web pages, forums, databases, search engines, RSS Feedlists... well you get the point.

  And so everyone who abhors copyright infringments, theft, plagiarism etc UNITE! Avoid any/all sites that post or references anything from any source (except in the context of fair use-- and be careful legal fair use is being redefined with an ever shortening leash) without explicit posted and proven assurances that the copyright owner (registered or not) has given permission therof.....

  Now I certainly expect there to be some negativity by these remarks but come on.... you can't defend your rights and step all over other people's (who may, or may not even, know that their copyrights are valid upon being placed in format and are being used without permission!)

  (cackling,sneering laughter heard in the distance) (camera pulls back)(begin fade out) as netizens everywhere become the upstanding citizens that we all wish them to be and walk away from their high speed connections, their downloads, their searches and web curiousities. And slip backwards into a safe cozy copyrighted darkness..........

  Again... I ask....

  Gee.... do we really want to create a brave new net where everything (every post, every search, every forum, every IM, every email, every webpage, every news snippet etc etc etc) comes with a EULA??? (Or worse comes with a warning that copyright infringment may be takling place unless such and such restriction have been met????? Think about it folks!

  Free Software, Free Hardware, Free Music and yes... Free Knowledge

  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
  http://www.opencollector.org/Whyfree/
  http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp.html
  http://www.hipatia.info/

  Posted by: new to rss but not new to thinking | June 6, 2005 11:14 AM





• Richard: I thank you for your comments :o) hopefully everyone had a much needed laughter break. I think your last post made your actual issue plain to me (though most certainly due to my own slow mentality lol) It is the use of using ALL your feeds, in their entirety that you are disgruntled with?? Yes, No??

  Well that is something different than I first thought we were discussing. I had imagined something similiar to "My Google" (hold on thats all there is about search engines lol) where you can say "give me x number of slashdots, x number of NY Times" and create a page intermixing with your own created web page. I didnt understand that you had meant for example the complete cut and paste of your site. I think that most would certainly agree with you under those terms. I think that the overall twisting and extending of your words revolved around, perhaps, the same misunderstanding that I had.

  I see now that you may not be opposed, per se, to someone using some/part of your feeds providing a link and credit to you. As for someone supporting their own bandwidth costs by placing Ads on their site along with these random feed snippets (properly linked and credited to you) well I'll just pass on that till the next round. :o)

  Posted by: new to rss but not new to thinking | June 6, 2005 11:29 AM





• I think the distinction Richard is trying to make is very interesting - it's about attribution and adding value and more, and i want to explore that. But first let's clearing the decks a bit:

  1) It's obviously not aggregator vs. website; as many have repeated endlessly there are website-based personal aggregators, and Richard is okay with that. 2) SuperFeedSystem (SFS) is not a web-based aggregator, it's meta- to that, making feed-repurposing available to one level less-experienced web developers. We're going to see a big increase in the reuse of other people's feeds, and Richard (and no doubt many others) are okay with some but not all uses. SFS isn't introducing a *new* hazard, just multiplying an old one. 3) Suggestions that Richard not offer a full text feed are missing the point - he *wants* some uses that require full text to be possible. I'm just not 100% clear what he's asking people to do or not do with those feeds. 4) Current law and custom are simply incomplete here. This means text like "...intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site,
  ***subject to copyright and fair use.***" isn't going to help much. We're figuring this out as we go along, and we need to get specific.

  Okay.

  Many people have mentioned the importance of attribution, so for all of the examples below, assume there's always clear attribution including a link back to the original site. But there's obviously more to it than that.

  I'm inferring that it's also important whether the site reusing the feed is adding any value. Richard says, "I'm not talking about a simple sidebar, the software we're discussing encourages people to populate their actual websites with our RSS feeds!"

  Sounds like reuse okay as long as others' feeds are not the only/primary thing to the site? When you see a lot of work being put in to add value are you more okay with your work being republished? There's value in selecting feeds/posts, arranging them, archiving and searching them (am i missing anything?)

  What about Google News? Others' feeds are the main thing on their site, but they are obviously adding value. Would it make a difference if full text were available without going to the original site? (obviously, Google thinks so) Why? Because we want people to come *our* site? When is full text okay?

  This may relae to personal vs. public use, which is important on its own too. Let me spin some more scenarios (imagine each with/without full text):

  Richard, you said you don't mind if someone adds your feed to their personal web aggregator. I assume this includes me setting up such a thing on my own website.

  Is it okay if there's no security, and people discover the URL on their own?

  What if i think it's a really great selection of feeds and spread the URL actively?

  What if that becomes a/the prime attraction of my site? (this gets back into the question of adding value again)

  Now i'll throw money into the mix. Continuing from the above scenarios, is it acceptable for me to put ads on other pages of the site?

  How about ads on the page itself?

  Coming up with specific scenarios can help us to articulate exactly what we are comfortable with.

  Posted by: John Abbe | June 6, 2005 12:00 PM





• "Coming up with specific scenarios can help us to articulate exactly what we are comfortable with."

  Look... the *only scenario* I'm talking about is software products that not only enable, but actively encourage their customers to use other peoples RSS content to populate their websites. Everything else is moot and of no interest to me.

  Why on earth are you people putting words and meanings into my mouth? This comment thread has totally lost the plot, but for my own "LOL" amusement I may as well let it play its course...

  And 'new to blah blah' - you can quote gnu.org/philosophy all you like, but it's got nothing whatsoever to do with my post here.

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 6, 2005 1:23 PM





• This comments thread is now closed. The final straw was yet another off-topic comment (which I just deleted). I only ended up deleting 2 comments, but I should've deleted many more.

  Update: I have though opened up a new thread specifically about Web content copyright:
  http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002748.php

  Posted by: Richard MacManus | June 6, 2005 4:15 PM