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Ask HN: Legality of RSS Feed Usage in Web Apps?
I cannot seem to find a solid answer to this question, so where better to turn? I am in the middle of developing a web application that utilizes a number of RSS feeds from the leading sites in a given industry. Just to point out, these feeds are all partial feeds and usually nothing more than the title/link is displayed. About 90% of the websites providing the RSS feeds display some sort of disclaimer regarding the feeds: "for personal, non-commercial use by individuals only. The feeds are free of charge for use by individuals, as long as the feeds are used for such individual’s personal, non-commercial use."
Now I can't help but notice the endless amount of commercial (some form of advertising) websites that use RSS feeds from other sites, as well as web-based RSS readers which are basically profiting from the same thing.
So, what exactly is the legality here? Wouldn't these sites encourage commercial sites to utilize their feeds to direct traffic back to them?
Thanks..
- goofygrin 18y agoI've got a similar question. Whenever a client tells me that they want an RSS feed I make sure that they understand the ramifications. An RSS feed typically drives up bandwith and drives down traffic. An RSS that includes full content is even worse since it gives a nice easily scraped content source for content theft.
- dpapathanasiou 18y agoI'm not a lawyer, but I had the same questions with my project and discovered that you can aggregate feeds under the Safe Harbor Provisions of the DMCA (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/512.html http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/512.html) as long as: (1) You stick to publicly-available feeds (2) You don't edit the feed content (3) You provide the feed owner a way to opt-out if he doesn't want you to access his feed anymore
- mstefff 18y agoThank you for the link, it's extremely helpful. I'm still sifting through everything, but does this still allow for commercial usage of the feeds?
- dpapathanasiou 18y agoThat's the extent of my knowledge; you should really find an attorney who understands IP and explain your idea.
- mstefff 18y agoI'm just confused because I see so many sites that aggregate RSS feeds. It seems like almost every site is doing it now - especially those sites like popurls.com and alltop.com. I emailed a handful of the companies whose feeds I am planning on using to see if they could elaborate a bit more. Thanks again.