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You are here: Home » The RSS Marketing Diary » RSS for Webmasters » Ripping Off RSS Feeds: RSS Syndication-Display Services Dozen-a-Dime June 2, 2005 Ripping Off RSS Feeds: RSS Syndication-Display Services Dozen-a-Dime Once "every" entrepreneurial internet marketer out there starts producing "marketing" software based on a specific technology you know that technology is nearing mainstream use. It has to be something about their born-in money making nose ... Anyway, new tools that allow webmasters to display syndicated content on their sites are poping up like mushrooms after the rain, all claiming they are the solution to the problem of not having enough time to produce content to keep bringing visitors back and satsify the search engines. While publishing syndicated content certainly has merit, it's still not the solution to all of your online publishing problems as some would have you believe. One of the latest such solutions is the SuperFeedSystem, which was released just a couple of days ago. You can find our more about the tool by reading their press release, but there is something we need to point out: "In our example, let's say that we wanted to find a Data Stream that has news about sports. After about 25 seconds of searching, you find a very nice Feed that contains the latest sporting news from a very well-respected source. What's in that feed? News from last night's game, the latest player drafts and trades, TV and radio schedules for games?practically everything that a sports fan might be interested in. Unfortunatelly, this is not exactly true. You in fact may not use syndicated feeds in any way you like, unless the publisher gives you that permission in his terms of use. There have been quite some discussions about this topic during the past few months, with many publishers resenting webmasters placing ads next to their syndicated content and using their content to make money. What can you do? You should be fine if you post only summaries and links back to full-text articles on the publisher's site, and of course give full attribution. If you're going to place ads next to that content, that might be more tricky. So it's always good to take a look at the publishers terms of use. And if you don't find any information pertaining to this, why not just ask? Most will be fine with you publishing their syndicated content, as long as you follow some ground rules ... Also, if you're on the other side of the rainbow and wish to protect your feeds, here's an article with some information to help you out. Richard MacManus at IonRSS has some posts about these problems as well: RSS Infomercials are upon us What to do when your RSS feed is ripped off More RSS feed rip-off merchants
Comments
Rok, I posted an aticle just yesterday about the exact same thing. There has certainly been a recent increase in theabuse of RSS feeds. If syndication is done properly then both parties can benefit from this sort of relationship. I believe this discussion about fair use for web feeds is concentrating on the wrong people. The real problem is a lack of education for web masters as to what is fair use for the feeds they post onto their sites. Any credible services and software similar to SuperFeedSystem.com will never modify nor remove the content within the feed. Just for a little background my partners and I have spent most of the last year developing the technology behind SuperFeedSystem.com and its partner services. We have consulted with attorneys and our terms of service is very clear as to what our service does and does not do and what we and are clients responsibilities are. What our service does is take a feed and translate it into HTML or other web format. The converted file is then delivered to the client for them to do with it as they see fit. We do not modify or remove any content within the feed nor do we encourage our clients to do so. It is up to our clients to follow any applicable laws for use of the materials. 1. One of the problems is that not even the publishers can decide on a standard on what is acceptable use and what is not. 2. And I agree that the SuperFeedSystem.com cannot be responsible for the bad conduct of your clients. However, you are for example supplying the wrong and missleading information in your press release, which does put at least part of the blame on you: "Are you allowed to get that feed? Yes! In fact, RSS is designed to make the distribution of any form of content easy. The reason that an author, news organization or corporation?s content is syndicated is because they want other people to subscribe and post that syndication. If they didn?t want it out on the web, they wouldn?t syndicate it! So we use it." Yes, RSS is designed to make the distribution easy, but that does not mean that the publisher actually wants or allows the webmaster to take that content and post it on the Web. Content delivery to end-users is one thing, content syndication to other sites is a different matter. Saying that the webmaster can just simply take the feed and use it without prejudice is missleading. The 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 content 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 it is perfectly legal and it is up to our clients to make certain that they are using the materials in an appropriate manner. It may be possible that our sales team has gotten a little overzealous with the promotional material and some of the material 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. Hector, I certainly understand your reasoning, but ... "It may be possible that our sales team has gotten a little overzealous with the promotional material and some of the material 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." You're promoting your solution with: "Are you allowed to get that feed? Yes! In fact, RSS is designed to make the distribution of any form of content easy. The reason that an author, news organization or corporation?s content is syndicated is because they want other people to subscribe and post that syndication. If they didn?t want it out on the web, they wouldn?t syndicate it! So we use it." Yes, this is totally missleading, no matter how you try to explain it, especially these two sentences: "Are you allowed to get that feed? Yes! In fact, RSS is designed to make the distribution of any form of content easy." and "If they didn?t want it out on the web, they wouldn?t syndicate it! So we use it." If you'd like word from another large publisher and his opinion, I suggest you take a look at this article: 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! "LOL", Search engines only take part of the content and then drive those visitors to you. Largest part of the problem are sites that take full-text content. "Largest part of the problem are sites that take full-text content." Then don't publish your entire content/article via RSS. Do like 90% of everyone else and only publish a 'teaser' which is the first few sentences of the content in the RSS feed. The 'RSS' provider/author has the full control here... And if they don't want it 're-published' on the web, then create an AUP for your feeds... To be honest I think th onus is on the RSS provider here. Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! ngxicoyrap Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! tkjckccajji Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! fysmqlgrou Post a comment
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