Replublishing Shared Feed: Good or Evil?
I’m a pretty heavy feedreader, with about 164 subscriptions. Over the last 30 days, I’ve read 8,032 items, starred 9 items, shared 20 items, and emailed 2 items. Of course… I really enjoy a good number of things that I read - and I want to share these items with everyone.
Then there’s the question about content-theft. Some bloggers like to take RSS feeds and republish them on their own site, earning revenue from the content, and there’s a huge backlash from the original authors.
What I’d like to do is publish my shared items feed here on my blog, without changing anything in the original article. I’ll have to play around with tagging and the like, and I’ll have to decide on what plugin to use exactly. However, will I get any backlash from the authors? Is this appropriate?
(There’s supposed to be a list of shared items here… but apparently it isn’t working.)
Now, keep in mind that each of them would most likely get their own post, with all of the original links intact. I’d be pulling the RSS feed from my Google Reader account (if I could link to my profile, that’d be great - then people could even “Add Eric as a Friend” and subscribe to my shared items. Alas - Google doesn’t make it that easy), and letting people read and see it here.
What do you think? Blog authors who I frequently share from, I’d really appreciate your opinion, or even suggestions on alternatives. Google Trends says my most shared items are from Lifehacker (a getting things done blog) - so YOUR comments would be especially helpful. 
Let me know!
-
Thats a tough one. Everyone likes sharing, and reading new information - but at the same time - publishing your shared items will indeed contribute to some sort of traffic increase to your site, which may well Pee off some of the authors.
Personally though i’d say go for it - devise a strategy that makes it clear that you are in no way trying to gain any glory (or $) but rather are trying to “Get the good word out” on authors and articles you like.
As long as it’s handled properly i don’t see it being a big prob. Besides -it’s not much different from someone sharing their RSS feed widget on igoogle with others - same end result. (Except that no-ones found a way to monetize igoogle yet
February 28th, 2008 at 1:38 pm -
I would find the complete posts to be distasteful, if I were a famous blogger (no fear of that happening). Besides, people would miss all comments and possibly edits (this I am not certain about).
For example, Graham of Catch your hare (http://www.catchyourhare.com/journal/) removed or hid some of his entries after publishing a book, but they were visible in my Google reader the last time I checked. Useful edits that add or change content would also be missed.
Something that shows the titles and maybe a line or two of content would be better. Further, it would not eat your posts. Keeping them visible is probably a priority.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:00 pm -
This is a tough one and the whole “shared blog” thing has been debated off and on for over a year now, it has really heated up since Google offered the feature in their reader and made it possible to republish full posts.
What you show above, with headlines only, I don’t see any real issues with and I doubt that anyone would really object to. Typically displaying titles and links is no big deal, it is only when one gets into the content that feathers get ruffled.
I think the link list you’re running now is on the good side of “safe” so I would not worry too much. But until a lot of these debates about RSS get resolved in court, I’d probably avoid going much farther.
Just my non-lawyer opinion.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
