I recently bought the latest RSS android plugin with a view to creating a feed made up from various rss feeds from various websites but these websites are are not my own and reading through various articles it appears using someone elses feed could be deemed a copyright infringement but other articles state its fair use if its only headlines so I thought I would get some of your opinions on this matter. Thanks

I have no idea but the rule of thumb I use is if it questions you then don't use or use a disclaimer of sorts. LA

I also don't know the rules but you could always try to contact the owners of the website and explain what you are doing with their feed (use it in a free or commercial app) and ask for permission. If you have the permission you are always safe. Best Regards, Danny

Here's a link to my app: http://tinyurl.com/8nnbpxr I use hundreds of RSS feeds in it. Most RSS feeds are for public use as they promote the site's content. When I submitted my app for the first time, I had to remove two websites due to their Terms of Use not allowing RSS feeds, however this is a very small number of sites. If you look at the info screen on the app, I say that I have no affiliation, ownership stake or connection to the websites and that all content is owned, operated and published by the respective sources. Another thing to think about is that the worst-case scenario is that you receive a cease and desist letter and you remove that website's feed from your app (or I guess if there's only one site then you just remove your app from the App Store/Google Play). Hope this helps and let me know if you have any other questions! David

(From my Archive of Website Best Practices) The Copyright Debate & RSS RSS is commonly defined as really simple syndication. So, this means that any material contained in a feed is available for syndication, right? Well no, not exactly. It means that the content contained in an RSS feed is in a format that is syndication friendly, if the copyright holder allows for syndication. Offering a feed for syndication does not in fact grant any legal rights to anyone to reuse the feeds content beyond what the Copyright laws grant as Fair Use. In practice, while your feed might legally be protected, you could literally spend weeks attempting to protect the contents of your feed. Legal gray areas are introduced with Search Engines indexing feeds and RSS Feed Directories including copy written feeds, in their categorized directories. How do you distinguish between a legitimate search engine, RSS directory and someone simply reproducing the contents of a feed for personal gain? Legally how can you defend against one and not the other? One can ask whether it is legally is it wrong to reproduce content in a feed. Morally is it wrong? Does the site have a purpose or value outside of the syndicated content? Is the aggregation of topic specific feeds in itself a value? If you use the feeds for content and label the site a directory does that make it any more legal? What about personal web aggregators? If it is for personal use,is it OK? Take a look at the following topic specific feed directories: Financial Investing - http://www.finance-investing.com or Security Protection - http://www.security-protection.net One could argue that the above sites do in fact provide value, aggregating and categorizing related topic specific feeds in a single location. In fact those in the security sector of the finance arena might find the above sites of significant value but what of the content creators? Laws and Technology Collide Most people publishing content via RSS support republication of feeds. The laws and legalities are still murky. It is assumed that content in RSS is protected by copyright laws but let us not forget the Internet is global and their is not a centralized body governing what is right or what is wrong. Not only does law and technology collide the laws of different countries, those creating the feed and those displaying the contents of the feed may contradict each other. It is for this reason, I would advise that publishers using RSS to assume that the contents of their RSS feeds will be syndicated and replicated. Tips and Tricks to Protect Your Feed. That is not to say there are not things that can be done to protect feeds. At the end of the day being proactive is the best way to protect intellectual property. Part of feed protection is ensuring that appropriate credit is given, this can be arranged by including a copyright assignment in the final line of the Item Description field. Additionally you can include links back to your website in the Item description field. Use teaser copy in the RSS feed's Item description field, linking back to your website which contains the full contents of the post. At the end of the day, protecting the contents of a feed can be daunting and limiting. Controlling your contents to ensure appropriate credit and links are included is critical.

Hi @Mr stuck, my opinion (for what its worth) is: If there are no t's and c's about using the feed, or you comply with them, then I believe a feed can be used. If the headline in a feed is clicked, it usually takes you to the page where the content originated. You get their branding and their layout, which in turn means the originator of the content gets the recognition, so my opinion is that should be ok. Alan

Thanks for the replies guys. It is my understanding under fair use that its ok to use headlines that link back to the site article. My main issue is with the decision to use a feed creator that generates a feed for any site which would mean I am using my own feed to scrape headlines from the page or just use the sites own feed to do the same. How can one be less legal than the other if the end product is the same. I will just roll with it and include the feeds which will be a combination of many feeds mashed together and I will add the stuff to the info page about not owning the content