Free Website Content - The Copyright Debate and RSS
The Copyright Debate
RSS is commonly defined as really simple syndication.
So, this means that any material contained in a feed is
available for syndication, right? Well no, not exactly.
It means that the content contained in an RSS feed is in
a format that is syndication friendly, if the copyright
holder allows for syndication. Offering a feed for syndication
does not in fact grant any legal rights to anyone to reuse
the feeds content beyond what the Copyright laws grant as
Fair Use.
In practice, while your feed might legally
be protected, you could literally spend weeks attempting
to protect the contents of your feed. Legal gray areas are
introduced with Search Engines indexing feeds and RSS Feed
Directories including copywritten feeds, in their categorized
directories. 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?
One can ask whether it is legally is it wrong
to reproduce content in a feed. Morally is it wrong? Does
the site have a purpose or value outside of the syndicated
content? Is the aggregation of topic specific feeds in itself
a value?
If you use the feeds for content and label
the site a directory does that make it any more legal? What
about personal web aggregators? If it is for personal use,is
it OK?
Take a look at the following topic specific
feed directories:
Financial Investing - http://www.finance-investing.com
or
Security Protection - http://www.security-protection.net
One could argue that the above sites do in
fact provide value, aggregating and categorizing related
topic specific feeds in a single location. In fact those
in the security sector of the finance arena might find the
above sites of significant value but what of the content
creators?
Laws and Technology Collide
Most people publishing content via RSS support republication
of feeds. Because the technology is fairly new, the laws
and legalities are still murky. It is assumed that content
in RSS is protected by copyright laws but let us not forget
the Internet is global and their is not a centralized body
governing what is right or what is wrong. Not only does
law and technology collide the laws of different countries,
those creating the feed and those displaying the contents
of the feed may contradict each other. It is for this reason,
I would advise that publishers using RSS to assume that
the contents of their RSS feeds will be syndicated and replicated.
Tips and Tricks to Protect Your Feed.
That is not to say there are not things that can
be done to protect feeds. At the end of the day being proactive
is the best way to protect intellectual property.
Part of feed protection is ensuring that appropriate
credit is given, this can be arranged by including a copyright
assignment in the final line of the Item Description field.
Additionally you can include links back to
your website in the Item description field.
Use teaser copy in the RSS feed's Item description
field, linking back to your website which contains the full
contents of the post.
At the end of the day, protecting the contents
of a feed can be daunting and limiting. Controlling your
contents to ensure appropriate credit and links are included
is critical.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and
podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage
http://www.notepage.net
a wireless text messaging software company.
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This article may be used freely in opt-in
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is included and the links are active. A courtesy copy of
the issue or a link to any online posting would be greatly
appreciated send an email to sharon@notepage.net
.
Additional articles available for publication available
at http://www.small-business-software.net/free-website-content.htm
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