Again this post is for entertainment purposes only, I am not a lawyer.

RSS Authentication works well for the picking up of feeds, but once in your RSS Reader has no effect.

What I would like to see is not just clear copyright statements (feedburner can do that for you Mathew btw)

The “noshare” flag I am suggesting which would be so simple to implement would prevent the sharing within the reader itself.

The implied nature is undecided. I am sure there are legal specialists who would argue the other way.

Robert in his comments was claiming that he has a right to share, even if the copyright notice didn’t allow for it.

He thinks it is the copyright owners reponsibility to contact him to remove it. IANAL but my understanding is that a copyright owner is under no obligation to issue a C & D.
They can just demand compensation.

And then of course the poor people who followed Roberts example and shared his feed with their friends, who again shared it etc etc. the viral effect. They could all be liable as well.

It probably would never end up in court. Most people sharing this content couldn’t afford to defend themselves.

And I would agree that Andy has a point — there are no doubt plenty of occasions when a person or a business doesn’t want information in their feed to become public, and maybe RSS Authentication is the way to go.

At the same time, however, I would disagree with Andy and argue that RSS the way it is now definitely carries an implied license (unless you include terms inside your feed), and that if you don’t want customers or whoever to find things out from your feed then maybe you shouldn’t be using RSS.

I’m impressed with the dialog Andy is generating on this subject.

I feel like a real idiot for my first comment. :)

Andy, I think contacting the Daring Fireball guys for their POV might be another good source for your argument. They’ve been effectively selling RSS subscription for a while.

http://daringfireball.net/

I am going to try hard not to duplicate too much content I have posted elsewhere, as that doesn\’t do justice to your readership.

There are 3 main issues.

1. A publishers right to control how their content is distributed
2. Should a publisher have access to readership statistics
3. The danger of sharing

On this blog you have a very clear Creative Commons license, stating exactly what you are allowed to do with your content. Many blogs, including Roberts just have a Copyright notice. You are arguing that there is some kind of implied license and the people you are quoting clearly state that this has yet to be challenged.

My knowledge of copyright law, especially US copyright law (though copyright is international), is in no way complete, but this is my understanding. Copyright isn\’t a grey issue. Until laws are challenged in court, and accepted universally (worldwide), the rules don\’t change. They are black and white. DMCA is pretty much set in stone

The extreme danger of sharing RSS content is whether you can afford to defend yourself. Shared RSS, if this becomes universally accepted becomes a viral frenzy of sharing, and a lawyers wet dream. Every person who shares content becomes infected by that content, liable just as much as the person who initially started to spread it.

My belief is that you can only argue an implied license, if you also provide an interface such that the original author of a feed item, has a way to flag that content \”not to be shared\” There is still a danger in spreading the feed, because the original author of the feed might himself have used content he didn\’t own.

Your primary arguement, and that of Robert Scoble is that RSS is meant for sharing. I would like to clearly state that I am not looking to totally prevent sharing of RSS content, but to give the original author of content a way to flag their feeds \”noshare\”, in addition to such things as a copyright statement (which everyone should clearly use - Robert doesn\’t on his feeds oh, and nor do you)

There is already plenty of RSS content which isn\’t intended to be shared. Here are some examples (this bit is duplicated from my own comments)

\”Here is a good source of further reading I read 18 months ago (toprank.blogspot.com/2005/04/free-rss-marketing-report.html) after hearing about it on Lee Odden\’s blog (toprank.blogspot.com) — The Business Case for RSS (www.marketingstudies.net/rssbusinesscase)

Some examples from the report for uses of RSS (at that time 18 months ago). These are personal private uses that shouldn\’t be shared.

Some affiliate managers already communicate with their affiliates using RSS.

This is often financial information. It is certainly not something that should end up in a shared feed.

One company uses RSS as a consulting billing awareness tool. The consultants create activity reports and the RSS feeds from the activity channels carry the billable information to the accounting staff for invoice preparation.

Highly confidential information

Create RSS autoresponders with scheduled messages, to keep in constant marketing contact with your prospects and slowly get them to the point of purchase.

The sales process can involve certain special offers specific to the previous actions of the subscriber. Having the sales process shared subverts the sales process.

Why should potential new customer be able to find out that existing customers are getting a bigger discount, or a better upsell offer?

Provide limited-access content to your customers, employees, team members and even investors, without fearing other unwanted eyes. Use RSS for internal communications, teamworking and other needs.

Have you seen (taskspro.com/features) Alex King\’s Task Pro?

RSS feeds of your tasks

Subscribe to the RSS feed for your tasks or your group\’s tasks and keep up with what your group members are working on.

Sounds like confidential information that shouldn\’t be shared to me.

How about some more Web 2.0 heros providing confidential information by RSS?

How about a (everything.basecamphq.com/archives/000131.php) warning from 37 Signals posted over 2 years ago

Your own article is also very relevant (www.mathewingram.com/work/2006/11/05/what-happens-to-attribution-in-social-media/) What happens to attribution in social media?

One financial aspect you forgot to mention that is very relevant in this case is the ability to track circulation, readership etc. Not just for autoresponders as I pointed out in my own article. It is equally true for all content owners.

Unfortunately Google is collecting data, and despite Google Reader being a relatively mature product (though still in beta), Google are hanging onto that data. Google is the exception in this. Every other Feed Reader gives this information. Robert chose not to question Google on this when he had the opportunity.

@ Engtech

You are right that FeedMagic by default isn\’t as secure as full RSS Authentication, but it is a personal feed, and you can also add RSS Authentication to it (it is only a password protected directory structure after all) Then it becomes just as secure as that offered by companies like 37Signals. There is a real advantage from a marketers perspective to know exactly which subscriber opened and read which message, and maybe clicked through to the offered content.

Advertising companies do the same.

For example (www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/05/fuckedcompanys-adbrite-spawn-goes-20/) this post on TechCrunch today.

I chose a product as just one example, but there was full disclosure, and I have got the script for that product sitting on my harddisk effectively unused, because of all the associated problems with sharing.

Why did I choose that product rather than 37 Signals? Yes I am an affiliate of the product (did you notice the full disclosure?), I actually know the guy, believe in the technology, know he hasn\’t had the success with it that might be deserved, and thus sending him traffic was more appropriate than sending it to 37 Signals.

An experienced programmer responding to my original post in the comments confirmed my own opinion, that it would be a simple programming task to implement a system that prevents a feed item being shared if it is against the wishes of the content owner. Obviously it would also take a little cooperation between the major aggregator companies, but adding \”noshare\” to feeds (at the option of the publishers) would in my opinion be more useful than when they added \”nofollow\” to blogs almost 2 years ago.

I have approached a specialist in internet law for some additional feedback on the legal ramifications of sharing copyright information. I am awaiting a response.
IANAL but my interpretation is that it would be very similar to a case earlier this year when some website content (some legal documents) was spread among 100s of websites. I would be very careful \”sharing\” a feed that belonged to a lawyer

I have also approached 2 prominent content owners for their input. Both display copyright on their website, and do not provide copyright terms within their full content feed. Both will have very good legal representation, and a clear policy in this issue. Hopefully I will be able to publish their views.