How I handle RSS theft (part one)

A number of people have asked me how I handle folks lifting our RSS Feeds and putting advertising against them. The first step I take is sending an email like the one below letting people know what we allow and what we don�t allow. I always CC our legal counsel and include a screen shot.

If I can find the email address from WHOIS I try info@, sales@, and webmaster@. Those seem to get picked up by someone.

If I don�t get a response within 24 hours I send a second email with �Second Copyright Notice,� and then a third after that point. If that doesn�t work I escalate to the advertisers, ad networks, and ISP.

99% of the time I get a response within the first three emails.

In this case, someone is doing an advertising supported RSS reader which is a huge infringement and something Bloglines, My Yahoo, and Newsgator don�t�and never�would do without permission from the publisher of the feed in advance. If you�re full RSS feed can be viewed at www.webloghub.com and they put advertising against it I highly recommend you send a them a note.

To: info@webloghub.com, webmaster@webloghub.com, sales@webloghub.com
Cc: legal <at> weblogsinc.com
Date: Jun 14, 2005 11:18 AM
Subject: Copyright Notice: Weblogs, Inc. content on Webloghub.com.

Dear Webloghub.com,

Please remove all copyrighted Weblogs, Inc. content (including stories from www.engadget.com) from the following URL: http://www.webloghub.com.

If you would like to use an excerpt of our content in the form of the headlines and the first 25 words of a blog post that is fine provided: (a) the content is not edited, and (b) the headline is linked back to the original story.

We do not allow people to republish our entire stories and put advertising around it (as you have in the attached image)�even if you are providing an RSS reader service. Our full-feeds are provided for end-user, non-commercial use only.

If you have questions please call me at 310-828-8284.

Please let me know when our feeds have been removed or you�ve moved to an excerpt format.

best regards,

Jason McCabe Calacanis
CEO, Weblogs, Inc.
310-828-8284

Jun 14th 2005 2:18AM
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1. This seems like a remedy for the amateurs, but will do nothing against those who make their living from recycled content. It is one of the main reasons I've always shied away from RSS. Content 'theft' has always taken place to a cetain extent, its just with the web it is now easier to do it piecemeal. Lets say you find a 'professional content thief' do you think that your content is just going to be restricted to one website? Anyone who has half a brain will have downloaded the RSS feed into a database, which can then be used to build website after website after website. They aren't going to care if they have to remove your content from one site, after all with a database its easy to build another site. A simple boolean field IncludeOnSiteA.com provides lots of scope. SiteB, SiteC ... SiteZ are all still going to be using that content until you find them and send them the request too. (The worst of it is that even if you don't give them the content via an RSS feed they will still download it using a website ripper, of which there are many publically available freeware packages)

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by Ian Turner

2. I run www.DailyWireless.org and would like to respond to Esme Vos of www.muniwireless.com: I am slightly peeved at Muniwireless, which probably explains my extended quotes. On several occasions I noticed my stories appeared on Muniwireless in a re-written format (with general credit) but no specific link-back. I felt that Muniwirelss was taking advantage of my stories. I may have made an error quoting too liberally from Muniwireless, but that's why I did it. Payback! I'm not really miffed at Muniwireless. Esme Vos does much more original reportage. She is now a primary resource and (rightly) considered the best information resource for municipal wireless stories. DailyWireless.org links to the source of quotations,indenting and italicizing the source if it's more than a couple sentences. DailyWireless.org typically combines snippets of (linked) sources to create a fused composite. It's a gray area. I often feel as if this "re-mixing" is a rip-off. On the other hand, I feel that the composite product is orignal and can stand on it's own. My sources are linked. My ultimate post would have every word linked.

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by Sam Churchill

3. Jason: So how do you feel about Google search? How about Google Cache? Based on the comment thread, is it OK to take the excerpt feed and wrap ads around it in your view? Ted Shelton

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by Ted Shelton

4. I have a question for Jason (and anyone else who cares to respond). I run a blog called Muniwireless.com. Here is my article about NYC Wi-Fi in the park: http://www.muniwireless.com/archives/000731.html Here is a post by a site called Dailywireless about NYC wi-fi in the park: http://dailywireless.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4260&src=rss10 He lifts entire paragraphs from my site. Sure there is a link to Muniwireless, but at that point it's useless. I am slightly peeved. Do I have cause to be a bit upset? Help.

Posted at 2:54PM on Nov 3rd 2005 by Esme Vos

5. Danny: Good points, we're on it. 1. We have added except feeds to our new sites like www.tvsquad.com and they are coming to all sites shortly. 2. It would look really bad if we have to put a copyright notice, but we are going to have a once a week or month notice like that inserted in a random post. It might say something like: "The following feed is for end-user, non-commercial use. You may not republish this feed, sell it, or sell advertising within or against it. If you are reading this feed on any website other then TVSquad.com please contact abuse at weblogsinc dot com."

Posted at 4:01PM on Nov 3rd 2005 by Jason

6. Nice example... thanks

Posted at 9:18PM on Nov 8th 2005 by Marcel @ Car Blog

7. Jason, you seem to be putting out a full text feed of your content, rather than abstracts. By doing so, you're going to naturally cause many people to be confused about whether they can reprint or not. They'll assume you're cool with reprinting. Otherwise, why are you feeding them the entire content? You've also got other people who know that a full-text feed isn't necessarily you granting them reprint rights, but they'll happily do so anyway and figure the case is confusing. In short, if you're worried about this, you shouldn't be feeding out full-text. And while you mark the feed as being for "non-commercial" use within the feed, that's not showing up in the actual posts. Some people might add the feed without ever seeing that disclaimer. It's not like tools and scripts you use to put them on your page generally show this. You might consider adding the disclaimer to the end of all your posts. Then, at least, if there's infringing behavior, those reading can see right at the end on how to report back to you directly.

Posted at 3:40AM on Jan 29th 2006 by Danny Sullivan

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