Where RSS republishing meets plagiarism
Taking someone's personal blog entries, changing the names, and then inserting the stories into your own blog is kinda sad. The comparison made in that story to a 6 year old exaggerating their playground exploits is probably a fair one.
It is obviously wrong though.
Less clear, is the validity of republishing someone's RSS feed. For example, my RSS feed (and others) are republished wholesale on sites like http://ferrari.gooddigest.com/14.html - obviously with the aim of creating bulk content in the hope of driving clicks to their Google ads. (the original content on my site as racked up $50 worth of clicks since 2003, so I don't see how it will work for them ;). It seems wrong, but is it? That page attributes my site and provides a link. It says "reported by" which implies that I have submitted the content to them, but in a way I have - I provide an RSS feed and effectively say "subscribe to this feed - I have things to say just like AP does".
Another analogy might be that it's not really that much different to cable tv distribution companies retransmitting the free to air channels on their cable without paying a fee (which has been upheld in the courts here in Australia).
In this case, my branding is getting a hammering by having my content identified with such a shonky website (which has even worse colour schemes than mine!), but what about a more "legitimate" site, like feedster.com, where my content becomes part of one of their feeds: http://www.feedster.com/search/type/rss/23hq It's not linking, it's actual digital duplication of my (copyrighted) content. But in the case of feedster, it's being duplicated by a service that is designed to help people find my content, so that's a good thing right? Before you assume the answer is no, think about how different that is to a Library, or Google books.
For a fascinating, in depth and really interesting read about Libraries and DRM (Digital Rights Management) check out the recent Groklaw post "The British Library - "The world's knowledge" DRM'd and for a price".
Any feedback on this? Semi? DB? Lars?
06:48 PM, 10 May 2006 by Mark Aufflick Permalink
Comments about Republishing and RSS Theft
Your comments regarding republishing of RSS feeds are intersting and thought provoking.
Most of advertising and indeed life is rehashing and republishing. It is often said ( and indeed interestingly enough continually reattributed to various sources ) that 90 % of advertising is wasted. However it is not known and cannot be determined which is the 10 % that is the effective usefull part. As mentioned this quote is republished and reattributed to any of a number of older and current sources. It is repeated and republished in itself.
As long as the person credits the source no harm is done.
Indeed this falls under the guise of promotion for yourself.
This is the beauty of blogs and blogging.
People can publish and focus on their areas of interests , expertise and pursuits.
It is all in the presentation both in terms of arrangement , context and indeed repetition .
I am sure that you have viewpoints and facts that originated not in yourself but through your interraction with others - teachers , professors and people that you either read or have contact with.
Do you not repeat their information ?
Would they be offended by you absorbing and presenting their views and arguements ? As well do you footnote them in your discussions or articles ?
The best compliment is copying - either in ideas or advertising.
In addition the whole point in RSS feeds and blogs is the dissimnentation and spread of ideas ? Is this not the point ? Is this what not is being done.
It is sort of funny that pre-Internet the whole idea of research was for the most part the research that was conducted at the University level.
Other than true original research at the science level most research consisted of copying sources into articles and giving enough footnotes and sources to allay charges of copying yet trying to create credit for all the information that was "stolen" as somehow original research.
As long as the information is spread in a non threatening manner and not taken out of context to prove some oddball point that you never intended what really is the concern ?
Is not the whole point of the exercise to spread usefull information among people who are interested or not interestested yet in the topic and who you are trying to develop that interest ?
thanks for provoking this discussion and perhaps interjecting some thought into a community that somehow had made their mind up before even reaching this discussion of yours.
Finally if you think that the ideas are for you to hold and shield- that somehow they were given by god to yourself then the answer is simply not to publish and keep the information for yourself and your family .
by Unregistered Visitor on 09/05/06