ComCorp

The Debate on RSS Article Syndication

Posted on 15. Aug, 2007 by ComCorp in ComCorp

First off all, ComCorp, Inc. would like to apologize for any harm may have caused by the republication of content from RSS Feed on our website.

We assumed that as RSS feed providers had submitted the content as an RSS feed, you would expect and agree to the republication of the content without prior agreement or negotiation. We believe this is the whole purpose of RSS feeds. If you do not want Syndication of your content then WHY submit it as an RSS feed?

Please see articles below and advise us of any other interpretations you have for the use of RSS feeds.

From the US Copyright Office RSS is defined as the following:

“RSS is an easy way for you to keep updated automatically on changes to websites you like. Instead of having to go to websites to see if they contain a new article or feature, you can use RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, to find out every time your favorite websites post something new.” Sourced: United States Copyright Office

“Most people publishing content via RSS support republication of feeds. I would advise that publishers using RSS to assume that the contents of their RSS feeds will be syndicated and replicated.” From http://www.feedforall.com

“RSS is defined specifically for syndication; in fact the acronym RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. This means that webmasters serving RSS content do not need to negotiate complicated content sharing partnerships in order to use content contained within an RSS feed” From http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/article44.html

From that definition we have derived that RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”.

A few weeks ago we decided that we would provide a public service that would syndicate industry related content on our website. As we did some research on this, we found that this was very common in our industry, and well supported by people or companies that provided Real Simple SYNDICATION (RSS) feeds.

After reading many articles on the web that basically stated the same as above, we assumed that syndicating content from RSS Feeds was okay and legal and actually expected.

To credit the original authors, we clearly sourced the author and website the feed was originally posted on.

At no time did we credit ourselves with the writing of content and so are not guilty of plagiarism.

The syndication of these feeds was in no way malicious or for profit. As you can see on the blog there are no banner ads. They were merely used to promote the content of the author and the author’s website and to provide quality advise on Internet Marketing. We had direct links to every associated website, therefore providing promotion to your website.

All the links were pointed back to the original website. We felt the syndicated content would provide a service for readers that could go to one place to read industry news. We apologize if you think we were using these feeds in a malicious way. That was not our intent. The RSS feeds will be removed immediately from our website upon request.

We are not hiding and just a phone call a way. If you don’t like the way something is syndicated on the site, then just call us on the contact information page. We would be more than happy to cooperate or remove any unwanted Syndicated content….and that is exactly what we have done.

As for the article “A Call To Readers & The Blogosphere For Content Theft Advice” saying that we have “stolen” your SYNICATED content and that we are “thieves”, we find that unfair.

We replicated the articles in good faith that pre consent was given by the RSS provider. We have not or would never plagiarize other people’s work. Please understand that we feel that the accusations of Theft in your article are untrue and Slanderous.

We would like to know your thoughts on RSS Synication.