Comments on: Does RSS equal implicit permission to reprint?

By: DaJeMa

DaJeMa — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:57:22 +0000

I don’t see why anyone would think just because there is an RSS feed that makes it free game for everyone. Some common sense should apply. But then, we’re not dealing with common sense people if they have to steal material to make it in this world.

By: carolyn

carolyn — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:29:15 +0000

No one is arguing that you don’t hold the copyright to your work, and you’re within your rights to send DMCAs to everyone you catch scraping your content.

The questions are: is it worth your time to fight it, and even if you score some minor victories and get your content taken down, is it going to stop the practice in general?

I think the answers to both are probably “no”.

By: tpiddy

tpiddy — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:20:35 +0000

i think i’ll have no problem sending out dmca notices all the time. i have google alerts setup and a template dmca letter… i just wish i could email them to blogger instead of fax.

creating the work gives me the copyright and RSS/atom is just a file format i choose to publish so that people can do what they want personally with fair use, but not republish for profit.

By: Cecil

Cecil — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:14:01 +0000

I would go in the direction that if you publish an RSS Feed, include a copyright code at the bottom of every post that links back to your website, I’ve seen this done on another SEO Blog (I think Graywolf, but I don’t recall).

Anyway, it would be smart since you would get links to the original content and would convince search engines where the content ORIGINALLY came from (in my opinion).

Furthermore, if you’re publishing an RSS Feed, it’s not up to you how others perceive this. Some will go with the ‘moral’ thing if you ask them not to steal your content. Others will steal it anyway.

Also, you can publish an RSS Feed with the title and include the first 250 characters, so it depends on how you publish your RSS Feed when it comes to who steals your content.

By: WilliamC

WilliamC — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:54:49 +0000

I would say that sums up the debate well enough.