Comments on: RSS and Copyright, circa 2006 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/2006/01/17/rss-and-copyright-circa-2006/ From the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:34:17 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Luba Spichkin http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/2006/01/17/rss-and-copyright-circa-2006/comment-page-1/#comment-44146 Luba Spichkin Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:50:19 +0000 http://clem.law.harvard.edu/jpalfrey/2006/01/17/rss-and-copyright-circa-2006/#comment-44146 This is a fascinating post. We use software at my site called vBulletin, which has a built in way to aggregate RSS feeds and post their content into threads in our forum. We have been doing this for about three months as a way to aggregate what we think is the best, most relevant content from around the web (similar to top ten sources) for our community. We always were very clear about posting links back to the source post and crediting the bloggers, but we made the mistake, and this is where we differ from Top Ten Sources, of not asking for permission, assuming since they published RSS feeds that they were open to having their content syndicated. There has been a very serious storm this past week of the bloggers whose content we syndicated, who are very upset about this practice. As a result, we have gone and solicited permission from everyone we have included, and as you would expect, we have received a mix of people who are happy to have us syndicating their content and others who are vitriolic about and opposed to the practice. However, we're seeing a much higher than 1% rate of people opting out. In any case, I think this is an issue that is growing in importance and complexity as more and more people use off the shelf publishing tools which publish RSS feeds. Many new bloggers and content creators aren't aware that they publish these feeds, and that can lead to angry creators. This is a fascinating post. We use software at my site called vBulletin, which has a built in way to aggregate RSS feeds and post their content into threads in our forum. We have been doing this for about three months as a way to aggregate what we think is the best, most relevant content from around the web (similar to top ten sources) for our community.

We always were very clear about posting links back to the source post and crediting the bloggers, but we made the mistake, and this is where we differ from Top Ten Sources, of not asking for permission, assuming since they published RSS feeds that they were open to having their content syndicated.

There has been a very serious storm this past week of the bloggers whose content we syndicated, who are very upset about this practice. As a result, we have gone and solicited permission from everyone we have included, and as you would expect, we have received a mix of people who are happy to have us syndicating their content and others who are vitriolic about and opposed to the practice. However, we’re seeing a much higher than 1% rate of people opting out.

In any case, I think this is an issue that is growing in importance and complexity as more and more people use off the shelf publishing tools which publish RSS feeds. Many new bloggers and content creators aren’t aware that they publish these feeds, and that can lead to angry creators.

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