Content Marketing for Mobile: Is Republishing RSS Feeds Legal?

In mobile marketing, content is king. Content that provides added value, for example in terms of relevant information, is a strong incentive for customers to consume branded information. Republishing RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds is an easy and popular form to provide such content, but is it really legal?

Agathe Caffier, part of the legal department of Golden Gekko, takes a look at the legal situation when republishing RSS feeds:

- In a world where we are spammed by tons of information every day, RSS feeds simply make sense. I read this very interesting comparison on Master New Media website stating that RSS was like fishing. Their explanation was; “Just like when you go fishing, you give out a lot of free fish food in exchange for a smaller and very targeted crowd waiting to jump and bite your next unique offering. As for the fish gathering around your free food give out, RSS is a tremendously powerful vehicle not only to deliver more efficiently your content but also to enable a self-sufficient army of individual publishers, reporters, bloggers and other news publishers to further spread and deliver it to an infinite number of otherwise unreachable audiences out there.-

The question is: Once the RSS is published, can anyone republish it without permission?


Legally there is a debate. On the one hand some argue that the information contained in the RSS is protected under copyright law, hence cannot be freely republished. However this argument raises another issue. Since the Internet is global, it is unclear which national copyright law applies. On the other hand some say that by distributing your content via an RSS feed, you are giving an implied permission to the reader to republish it.

Some publishers get very irritated by the plagiarism of their RSS content. Websites use the published RSS feeds and republish them to generate traffic for their website or display their ads and hereby generate money.

I think the operative point is the objective that is pursued. If an RSS aggregator republishes the RSS with the intention of sharing information and makes a reference to its originator there are no legal caveats. The line is drawn where republishing is used for advertising or generating money purposes. In fact, you can now find in the terms and conditions of some news publishers' websites a section where with an explicit permission to republish the RSS under the condition that an appropriate attribution to the author is added when appearing on the website. Another possible solution is that news aggregators could contact publishers of RSS directly to obtain their permission for using their content.

In conclusion, if not explicitly indicated, the legal position of aggregation and republishing of RSS feeds is unclear. One should therefore always read the terms and conditions and respect the content author’s wishes. In my opinion republishing the RSS via an aggregator with no profit-making purposes can create a win-win situation.