Hi There:

I used the RSS feed (a commercial product purchased from snowcovered.com) to import blogs from other sites onto my site wallstreetrisks.com and I was accused of violating other's copyright.  Does that accusation make sense?  Do I need to get permission first to use the RSS on a given site?  When you setup the RSS, does not that mean you already allow others to use it?  I am confused.  Can someone help?  Many thanks.

Hi Sebastian:

Thanks a lot for your info.  What about citing some paragraphs or even titles from other sites?  Do I still need to get permission first?

Just adding to what's already been said.  Many news feed providers have terms and conditions published along with their feeds that tell you how and what can be published.  In most cases, providers want attribution displayed for the news source, either by including an icon link, or displaying the channel source information.  Some news feeds can be used without restriction but it's always a good idea to check with the provider before publically placing them on your website.  If you do not respect the providers declaration of usage then you may be subject to whatever actions are allowed by legal entities that apply.

It's not that hard to comply, though, and most cases can be settled by simply contacting the provider with a statement that you are taking actions to comply, and an apology.

Brings up a lot of questions though about any news module implemenation that aggregates feeds without attribution for the individual channels.  We do need to do more to allow for the option to display appropriate attribution of content that is consumed from other sources than our own.