Please note: An update has been posted to this article.
I’m writing this post in response to the recent controversy over on Deborah Ng’s Freelance Writing Job blog (an excellent resource for writers, by the way). I missed seeing the original post, but it appears that Deborah mistakenly accused Caitlin Moriarity of stealing content, when Caitlin was actually including the syndication feed for Deborah’s blog in her Friends’ list. Deborah has apologized, and Caitlin posted in comments: “Okay ladies and gents, I got an e-mail from Deb apologizing, plus she posted to her own blog and mine. As far as I, the formerly accused, am concerned, we’re good, so please lay off Deb.” (See Caitlin’s longer explanation here).
Update from Deborah Ng: “Hi Debbie: Just for the record, the reason this upsets me so is because the entire content of two blogs is being posted verbatim on another person’ s page. There is a link back to me, however. I understand Caitlin didn’t plagiarize, but is it still ok to post someone else’s content without permission? I maintain it’s not.”
The whole RSS feed / copyright topic is a controversial one that should be kept separate from the incident that originally started this discussion. If you post a comment, therefore, please address the content below:
Because RSS technology is relatively new, the legalities around it are still murky. My own take: If you are republishing my entire blog post in an RSS feed AND making money with the site (including running ads alongside my content), then I’m going to be upset and will write to you, requesting that you remove it.
If you’re republishing my entire blog post in an RSS feed and not making money, then it depends on the context. If it’s a private feed, then of course I have no problem — that’s why I have the feed in the first place, to make it easier for my blog readers to know when I’ve posted. I also don’t have a problem with public feeds that use only headlines and a brief excerpt (as Livejournal feeds seem to do, unless I’m mistaken).
If my content is being republished within the context of YOUR public site without my permission then I’m going to be upset, especially if navigation links on that page lead the reader to pages within your site instead of to mine. As this Business Logs article states: “I think there’s a big difference between making a site’s RSS feed available for personal usage (aka, feed reading) and a company republishing it in an effort to draw more readers to its site.”
Legally, there still appears to be a question whether republishing content via RSS feed constitutes an infringement of copyright. As Sharon Housley points out in her article “Copyright Debate and RSS”: “How do you distinguish between a legitimate search engine, RSS directory and someone simply reproducing the contents of a feed for personal gain? Legally how can you defend against one and not the other?” I’d appreciate hearing from anyone with a legal background, especially with pointers to specific docs, if possible.
Anyway, this whole debate is prompting me to investigate RSS feeds further, how to protect my content, and weighing risks against the benefit of using RSS feeds. I’ll be posting any useful info I find in Inkygirl.
11 responses so far ↓
Deb // Apr 25, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Hi Debbie,
Just for the record, the reason this upsets me so is because the entire content of two blogs is being posted verbatim on another person’ s page. There is a link back to me, however. I understand Caitlin didn’t plagiarize, but is it still ok to post someone else’s content without permission? I maintain it’s not.
Inkygirl // Apr 25, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. I didn’t see your original post. I’ll add this info to my post.
Cynthia // Apr 25, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Here’s why you would want people to use your feed.
Imagine this. You write the world’s best articles on Tiddlywinks. You have 20 people visit your site everyday. Nice. Now, person 1 posts your RSS feed to his LJ where 100 people visit. Now you have 120 people reading your articles about Tiddlywinks - isnt’ that the point of writing? To have readers read your work?
RSS feeds are a way of syndicating content. Syndication is good. It gives more people a chance to see YOUR content. People who might not have found it on their own.
If you run an affiliate program blog, even better:
The RSS feed user - does not profit in that links come across in tact, so if you’re linking to an affiliate program (as I do with my blog), those links come back to me.
I would LOVE hundreds of people to add my blog to their LJ page so that I have potentially hundreds of new people clicking on my links and buying what my affiliates are selling or at the very least, enjoying my work.
That’s why you use an RSS feed to either sell a product with a link or to promote yourself just as any syndicated columnist would.
If the NY times wanted to publish your blog in full, would you say no because they run advertisements? I don’t think so.
latoya // Apr 25, 2007 at 6:03 pm
It’s one thing to use an RSS feed on your personal MyYahoo, MyAOL, PageFlakes, or whatever portal you choose. It’s another to use an RSS feed to display other people’s content on a website you use to provide a service.
Being a professional writer isn’t just about being read by as many people as possible. It’s about being acknowledged and compensated for your work. I can choose to take only one or the other, but that’s MY choice to make, not some RSS feed.
And if the NY Times published my blog in full without first obtaining permission or compensating me, I’d sue.
Gary McGath // Apr 25, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Creating an RSS feed constitutes an implicit permission to republish it. That’s what services like Bloglines are doing. If people don’t want their feeds appearing on someone else’s web page, why did they create a feed? They have the option of not creating one, creating a password-protected one, or creating one that publishes only the start of each article. Not all blog publishers necessarily provide all of these services, but they’re all technically feasible under RSS.
If the feed isn’t properly credited or is made to look like the reissuing site’s own work, that’s another matter, of course. But that apparently isn’t the question here.
Deb // Apr 25, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Gary,
Respectfully…
I’m not so sure I agree with you. RSS feeds are designed to make it easier for individuals to subscribe to a blog. All feeds come in to one locality so the subscriber doesn’t have to physically visit every blog on his list.
I’m not sure feeds were invented to copy entire blogs filled with content to place on other blogs. It’s illegal and unethical to take someone’s content and cut and paste, right? Even with a link back to do this without permission is highly unethical. So why would it be ok to allow a feed to post months worth of content from two blogs to a group page? Conversely, why would I create content for other people to place on their own blogs?
I learned my lesson though. I will no longer publish a full feed. From now on only a paragraph or two will appear.
Avt tor // Apr 25, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Re Deb’s last comment: I think she’s right. RSS feeds make it convenient for readers to read blogs that interest them. Having a third party inject themselves for their own profit or benefit violates the whole notion of copyight (which of course is the right to copy). Whatever law permits or technology makes possible, it’s still up to individuals to respect the work of others.
Volker // Apr 26, 2007 at 3:12 am
An RSS feed is for syndication, thus implicitly free for inclusion as long as it remains basically unchanged, i.e. contains date, heading, text *and* backlink to the original/full story.
I have found three basic types of RSS feeds containing:
1.) only date, title and link
2.) date, title, link and ABSTRACT
3.) date, title, link and FULL text
Obviously the first two are not really usable for “stealing” content but function more like ads for your own blog. In contrast to this the third offers opportunities of freeriders.
When publishing news (http://filk.info/news/rssfeed.php) and for reading, both I prefer the second version, i.e. with an abstract instead of full text. So maybe I’m sidestepping the issue a bit…
John Hewitt // May 1, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Hi Debbie,
I’ve encountered similar problems with my site. there are for-profit sites that republish my job postings. The easy solution is to change your feed to a Headlines-only feed, requiring readers of the feeds to click on the link to read the actual article. It isn’t a great solution, which is why I chose to just not to worry about the other sites (after all, most of my jobs are links to other sites to begin with. )
Rob Wynne // May 2, 2007 at 10:30 am
I think we have a case of “symbolism and intent” here.
As has been pointed out, an RSS feed is an implicit invitation to syndicate the content. The publisher of the feed has control over how much information that feed contains, and even who can access it, should they choose to.
What is clearly wrong, IMO, is syndicating someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. As long as the feed is clearly marked as to who the author is and where to get to the original site, then it’s operating inside the parameters of what syndication is for.
That’s all about legality, though. Simply republishing someone else’s work on your site via RSS without asking isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s rude. If I said to Debbie “Hey, I really like your writing here, do you mind if I syndicate it so that people who read my site can see your stuff and benefit from it?” she’ll either say “Yeah, sure!”, at which point we’re all good, or she’ll say “Gosh, I’d not feel good about that”, at which poitn I don’t *want* to do it, because I respect Debbie and don’t want her to be unhappy with me.
So, in summary:
Is it legal? Yes
Is it moral? Probably, but there’s room for reasonable people to disagree.
Is it polite? Only if you ask.
Katharine Swan // May 6, 2007 at 12:20 am
Rob, I completely agree. You spelled it out nicely.
Cynthia, Latoya is right: Even the NY needs to GET PERMISSION FIRST. As Rob noted, it may be legal, but moral is another question.
To everyone, I recommend reading The Little Book of Plagiarism. The author (a judge) makes a clear distinction between what’s legal and what’s moral. Although the book is written about traditional forms of publication, I think the basic message applies here too.