louisgray.com - Latest Comments in louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

WD — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:34:50 -0000

And I second that.

Don't publish an RSS feed if you're going to get upset over where your content goes.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Richard Bradshaw — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:12:22 -0000

If you don't want content syndicated, don't offer an RSS feed.

Surely it's that straightforward!

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

gregorylent — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:45:52 -0000

funny how the comments are becoming more important than the content ... i love louisgray.com, but came here today via freindfeed ... and now will go back there ... "ownership" is not going to be what it was ..

and mystics have always told us, we own nothing ... looks like they may be right

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Edwin Khodabakchian — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:22:47 -0000

sure. My email is edwink@devhd.com

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

bobby_d — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:10:03 -0000

Uhmm.. isn't the closet legal precedent the one on photocopying pages?

I'm not sure what the law is in the States, but I know in some countries, businesses can copy a few pages of a book, since its considered fair deal. So the analogy would be that any rss aggregator can rebroadcast a few feeds as long as they clearly state the source.

Therefore, since RSSmeme is not rebroadcasting an entire day's blog roll, but a select few based on shared popularity, wouldn't it fall under fair deal?

Lastly, I guess it comes done to the question of responsibility? Is it the bloggers responsibility to supply partial feeds, or the feed aggregator to only broadcast partial feeds.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

PJ Brunet — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:54:44 -0000

I created a Java image harvesting spider back in 1999, made some webmasters very angry, legal threat to my ISP. Years later Google uses my idea and nobody blinks ;-)

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

charlieanzman — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:06:55 -0000

Louis - You should point the the FF discussion within these Disqus comments. They will reach a larger audience and, repeat or not, this is extremely important and one issue that shouldn't get fragmented. There really is no argument here but if it goes to some court somewhere (not Ben, but the next time), there's a better than even chance the ruling would be wrong, appealed (forever), and a lot of time and money thrown in the garbage. Agree completely with Kevin Fox. The feed is implicit permission. Period. If you don't want to be republished, lose the feed.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Phil Glockner — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:05:42 -0000

Thanks for your take, Edwin. I didn't mean to say that Feedly was inherently evil -- it was merely a convenient example to illustrate a border case.

I do think it's cool that you are taking these things under consideration, though.

By the way, I have some questions about feedly that I'd like to sideband.. can I get your email? Or can you email me at phil at scribkin dot com.. thanks.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Edwin Khodabakchian — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:28:55 -0000

In feedly, we are exploring a different path. A combination of: we offer an API for the publisher of the content to surface *their* ads next to *their* content (and it will be only their ads next to their content). The same API will allow them to also turn off the full display of their content in feedly. We are going starting next week to put a forum together to talk to publishers and better understand their needs and see if this combination is a good thing or a bad thing.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Anthony Farrior — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:11:55 -0000

I guess it depends on the company and it's respect/disrespect for your rss. Blatantly hiding behind Google reader to make money off of others full rss feeds might be wrong too...

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Anthony Farrior — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:07:14 -0000

Great question...

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Phil Glockner — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:01:35 -0000

This gives rise to another question though -- how about an app like feedly? Regardless of its other benefits/drawbacks -- it works with your Google Reader cache directly and has a space for an ad. No ad appears there yet, but you can be sure if there was an ad there, the money would go to the plug-in creator.

Would that fall under the same restrictions?

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Phil Glockner — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:55:21 -0000

"The argument that if you don't want your content copied then don't publish a RSS feed is a long favored argument of the splogging community..."

Haha, I never considered myself a part of the 'splogging community,' and, although I may have repeated one of 'their' favored arguments, I was actually just stating my thoughts.

That said, you are right -- there are lots of ways to steal content from a site, and like a photo, there should be a way (like creative commons perhaps?) that people can share their content without other people making money off of it.

I could see where, at first blush, RSSmeme appears to have all the elements of a 'splog'.. it has an ad, it has its own comment system, and it republishes full article text (if the original feed uses full text).

However, personally I know that the RSSmeme site is almost secondary. The way I use it, it could just have article headlines, and as long as it does its job of finding me new shared articles and the ability to re-sort said articles in different ways, I'm happy.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Glenn Slaven — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:47:31 -0000

Feed aggregators (Newsgator/FeedDemon, GReader, etc.) are all reading tools. They allow you personally to read the content that the publisher has provided on a personal basis. RSSMeme, ReadBurner, etc are publishers. They push content out on a public broadcast. With the feed readers, even the web based ones, you log in and view a private page.

Now Google Shared items & Newsgators clippings folders both publish full feed content publicly. You can view all the RSS articles I've shared in FeedDemon in my Newsgator clippings feed ( http://services.newsgator.c... ) and the same goes for Google Reader shared items. Google takes it one step further by providing a HTML page where anyone can view these items. The only difference between these two things and what RSSMeme was doing is the display ads. Is that the issue? If there weren't ads on RSSMeme would anyone have complained?

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Duncan Riley — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:23:25 -0000

J Phil
a commercial replication of full content is NOT the same as a personal use, ad free service like Google Reader. People publish full content feeds so people can follow their work, they don't grant the right for others to republish it in full on their own sites then put ads around it. The argument that if you don't want your content copied then don't publish a RSS feed is a long favored argument of the splogging community, but I can also scrape any website as well...should we just not publish anything at all under that logic then?

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Anthony Farrior — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:17:08 -0000

I agree w/you 100%. Full RSS Feeds somewhere else with their adsense ads aren't ethical.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Phil Glockner — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:14:46 -0000

Bummer. I kinda liked being able to read full articles on RSSmeme.

Also, there are ways to make a site have no RSS feed. I read a blog (Que Sera Sera) that does not have a public RSS feed. To me, this is a clear statement telling people... read it on this site and don't syndicate it.

I think this other person should do the same, if they don't like feed aggregators picking up their stuff.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Anthony Farrior — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:13:58 -0000

I definitely believe I have more to learn from you and others, but I still believe in promotion. Maybe I need to adjust my thinking some time soon...

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Duncan Riley — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:09:24 -0000

Solacetech
you are missing the distinction between personal and commercial use. It's one thing to offer a full feed for Google Reader (a promotional tool if you like), it's another thing for someone to steal your content/ book and resell it. No one would stand for a stolen book, why are blogs any different? Under copyright law they aren't. Fair use allows for an extract, anything more is theft where permission hasn't been obtained for commercial use

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Duncan Riley — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:05:30 -0000

"The issue of how RSS-enabled content is monetized, where comments lie, and who has full control over blog entries isn't going away any time soon"

Wrong. It has long been dead and buried, it's just that some are trying to get away with content theft again under the banner of 2.0. Copyright law is clear who is right and wrong, and it has long been established that the publication of full content feeds is for personal use (ie feedreader) and not for commercial use. The only people who cloud this distinction are the very people who are trying to exploit the labors of others, the leaches like Teare and Favorit.

In Benjamin's defense I believe, at least from the FF feed on this topic, but he honestly didn't know the copyright position before now, and the fact that he's pulled full feeds is a definite positive in my books. However the argument that if you don't want your items published you shouldn't offer full feeds is a typical splogger position and I hope Benjamin soon drops it. Again: full RSS feeds are offered to personal consumption, NOT commercial republication, unless permission has been granted or a license is in place for that content to be republished.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Robert Seidman — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:05:05 -0000

If you're a small blog looking to only generate 20,000 page views or so a month, and happy with a few hundred RSS subscribers I agree with you completely that a Louis Gray mention here and an RSS Meme share there are at least half the battle. If you're enamored with the idea of 2 million page views a month rather than 20,000, the search engines come into play in a significant way -- much more significantly than RSS Meme, Twitter, FriendFeed, Stumble, Reddit, etc. Combined. That's today. If tomorrow's different, so be it!

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Benjamin Golub — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:56:46 -0000

Thanks for your support Louis.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Anthony Farrior — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:53:44 -0000

I understand your "page rank" argument, even though some say page rank is irrelevant. Also I did mention my SLIGHT (note All Caps) problem with full rss blog displays. That being said, I only label ones "N00b" if they show they don't understand how to promote themselves. Seeing my content on rssmeme is half the battle when it comes to seeding the internet with my blog, who would be mad about that? Who would sue for that?

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Robert Seidman — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:43:55 -0000

Anthony, I may be wrong, but I am far from a "n00b". I view search engine traffic as being the primary traffic source for our site's content. If a site that publicizes our content, even if it does bring us some traffic, winds up ranking higher in Google with our content than our own site, that's net of everything very bad for us and very good for them. Google/other search engines can solve for that, but it's a real and legitimate concern for people who generate a significant amount of their traffic via search search engines.

Re: louisgray.com: RSSmeme Creator Served With Legal Threat Over RSS Sharing

Anthony Farrior — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:17:58 -0000

IT's scary when a positive thing such as a "shared" feed becomes negative. Why don't people buy or download business books? Clearly, doing a little research shows that promotion is key to profitability. I don't mind If a RSS Feed site displays my site. That's a hit or piece of traffic being counted for my site. Yes it's not a "unique" hit but it shows me the potential to be unique or human. I do have a SLIGHT problem with full posts being shown but you have to "give it away" to have it come back to you. Only N00bs get paranoid about this.