I love RSS.  It’s the magic that lets me sift through hundreds of fresh blog and site content in one sitting (with my trusty aggregator).  However, as with most good things, people tend to discover ways to exploit the benefits in a twisted way.

Take for example these warnings from IONRSS:

• RSS informercials are upon us


• What to do when your RSS feed is ripped off


• More RSS feed rip-off merchants

And this one from Read/WriteWeb.

I can describe this new phenomenon in two words: Copyright infringement!  Or simpler yet: content theft!

It basically entails unscrupulous merchants aggregating

original material by other individuals into their own sites for the

purpose of garnering enough keywords and topic discussions to enhance

their search-engine positions. 

What’s bad is that these are used for commercial gain.  Not only

do these violate acceptable and fair use policies that content authors

(including bloggers) may explicitly indicate on their sites, such as my

own Creative Commons license, they intend to rip us off outright.

Personally, if you do intend to use my work commercially, please do

seek my permission first.  I may be amenable to allowing such use

without any need to pay royalties, but do make sure to first get my express

permission.

My publishing of an RSS feed doesn’t translate to an invitation to rip

me off.  It’s an invitation for my readers to explore this

innovative way of reading content on the ‘net.  It’s also a good

way of expanding my readership by making my content available to more people.  I reckon most personal publishers

(aka bloggers) would share this sentiment.

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