?Copyright on RSS feeds

Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 3:11 pm

If I put content in an RSS feed do I lose the copyright? Just because it is in a feed does that mean that anyone can put it on their site?

Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 3:13 pm

Just to clarify I read this article:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/cmp/20050201/tc_cmp/59100487

Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Northern Ohio - USA

Anonymous wrote:

If I put content in an RSS feed do I lose the copyright? Just because it is in a feed does that mean that anyone can put it on their site?

Let me begin by saying that I'm not an expert in Intellectual Property Law. If you want expert advice regarding your own unique situation, I strongly recommend consulting with an attorney having a background of this kind. However, I've been working as a professional web developer since 1995. Hope that means my advice counts as worth something!

Within the US, and most other countries, copyright conventions follow the Berne standard. (See list at bottom for suggested reading.) In a nutshell, this means that anything someone creates in a specific form (written text, photograph, artwork, audio recording, etc.) is automatically copyrighted.

Copyright management & enforcement, as it applies to the web, is especially problematic. Based on actual court cases that I've read about, it appears that enforcing it without a formal registration, and/or public notices could be difficult. Deciding what to post on a site, or within an RSS feed, will always entail a certain amount of risk. Deciding how far to go in protecting that material will require careful thought & planning.

One point I must stress is to avoid using any of those 'disable right-click menu' tips. For one thing, they do not provide any real protection. Another point is that this will probably annoy your visitors, and could drive them away. The right-click menu is used for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with saving an image file. (Boy, if I could just get a nickle for everything I've had to explain this!)

There are tips that will reduce the risk of theft, a few of which are can be done quite cheaply and easily. I'm not going to get too specific here, because this is how I make my living! Suffice to say, any good web developer should be able to consult with you on your specific needs...

Hope this helps!

Resource List

Copyright Website. (Unknown). Resource on registration process for various media. [HTML] Retrieved on November 22, 2004 from:
http://www.benedict.com/

Encyclopedia.com. (Unknown). Entry on Berne & Universal Copyright. Retrieved on January 13, 2005 from:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/copyrigh_TheBernandUniversalCopyrightConventions.asp

Templeton, B. (Unknown). 10 Big Myths about copyright explained. Retrieved on March 7, 2004 from:
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 10:44 pm

The issue of copyrights on feeds is a big can of worms. While RSS stands for really simply SYNDICATION, it becomes a very hazy issue quickly, when feeds are extracted from websites.
Many serious bloggers have begun using creative commons reserving some content rights - see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/

It will be interesting to see how the whole issue of copyrights and fair use plays out with regards to blogs and RSS.

Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Northern Ohio - USA

webmaster wrote:

The issue of copyrights on feeds is a big can of worms. While RSS stands for really simply SYNDICATION, it becomes a very hazy issue quickly, when feeds are extracted from websites.
Many serious bloggers have begun using creative commons reserving some content rights - see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/

It will be interesting to see how the whole issue of copyrights and fair use plays out with regards to blogs and RSS.

Thanks for pointing this one out to me! Hadn't heard about this before. Going to have to share this with some of our authors in our user group too! Most of them are like me, willing to write material on a topic in exchange for some publicity. Educating user group newsletter editors on the need to preserve those statements is an ongoing problem...

Guest

My philosphy is pretty simple if the material is in a feed it can be freely syndicated and distributed. If you want the benefits of putting something in a feed assume that others will use the content. Afterall

RSS = really simple syndication

that said, I'm completely opposed to scrapers that go out and farm content from copywritten websites and create feeds.

Also something many are aware of there is a way to credit a source in an RSS feed. In FeedForAll if you click optional and include the link of the source in the "source" field, the contents originator is credited.

JJC

Guest

That is simply not true. Just because content is placed in an RSS feed does NOT mean that authors relinguish their rights to their copyrights.

RSS does not give others the right to steal content. Some people feel RSS = rich site summary not really simple syndication.

Tara Hendricks

Guest

Tara Hendricks wrote:

That is simply not true. Just because content is placed in an RSS feed does NOT mean that authors relinguish their rights to their copyrights.

RSS does not give others the right to steal content. Some people feel RSS = rich site summary not really simple syndication.

I think an assumption is made that if content is in an RSS feed that it is ok to syndicate it. I do, but I always respect the creator's wishes to remove a feed if they request its removal.

Ultimately I think that if content creators want the benefits of RSS they are going to have to relinguish some copyright rights.

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:17 pm

While not the exact issue being discussed I came across two related pieces that are very interesting the first is an article on Information Week that discusses ownership of blog content:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=4LIZMGIVEVVQ4QSNDBGCKHSCJUMEKJVN?articleID=59100462

And a follow up discussion on Slashdot - http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/03/1659259&from=rss that shows a wide range of views.

Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:03 pm

NewsIsFree includes and interesting clause at the beginning of its feeds "FOR PERSONAL AND NON COMMERCIAL USE ONLY!"

I'm not sure if this is to prevent commerical syndication.

Guest

There is another article about the same issue on Clickz - http://www.clickz.com/experts/brand/capital/article.php/3462501

Personally my feeling is that, whoever is creating the feed, needs to realize the possibility the contents might be syndicated. If they are establishing an expertise with the feed include names and links in the description of the feed. If the focus of the feed is to convey a marketing message incorporate the message into the contents of the Item description.

This is a really easy way to make syndication work, in other words find a way to benefit from syndication rather than trying to swim against the tide ;-)

Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 13

Anonymous wrote:

If I put content in an RSS feed do I lose the copyright? Just because it is in a feed does that mean that anyone can put it on their site?

ASCAP Internet License Agreements might be of interest to people investigating licensing. ASCAP first offered a licensing agreement for Internet sites and services in 1995.

Additional information is at http://www.ascap.com/weblicense/

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