I want to place a press review on my site but I am not sure if there
are problems with the copyright.
The way I will place the news: a link to the article (the link
contains the title of the news).
I saw many sites offering rss feeds but they all specify they are for
noncommercial use only. Putting adsense on my page means my site is
commercial?
I have found several sites that use these rss feeds (ex.
http://www.newsisfree.com/) and they also have adsense.
I have contacted Reuters asking for permission of using news and the
answered ok at start and then a different person from Reuters sent me
an email saying that I can't use there rss feeds because they are for
individuals only.
Then I found Yahoo which is offering an excellent customizable news
rss (which I can use to show only what is relevant for my site):
http://news.search.yahoo.com/usns/ynsearch/categories/news_story_search_rss/index.html?p=keywords

I think I have bored you enough, but I wanted to clarify what I am interested in. 

The question is: can place news on my site (a link to the article the
anchor is the title of the news) from various news sources and what
would be the fair usage (not to brake the copyright law) if the answer
is affirmative?

Hello Bbogdan

As I understand the law you are free to *link* to the complete news
story from any page on the internet.  The only exception to this would
be if the site where the story originates forbids this but this is
very unlikely as the internet thrives on other people saying "have you
seen this?" and then giving a link.

What you cannot do is copy the whole story and also provide a link,
what would be allowed is for you to summarise the story and then link
to the original if you meet strict guidelines.  The rules on the
internet are broadly similar to the rules governing written text. 
There is a very good summary of the rules regarding plagiarism here:
http://www.hamilton.edu/academics/resource/wc/usingsources.html?CFID=2220529&CFTOKEN=49520444

If a site or newsfeed strictly forbids the use of its summaries or
stories with a statement such as "All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form,
without prior written permission" then you MUST abide by this.  Try to
think of it with regards to your own website, if you had paid for a
writer to produce a story for you and then this story turned up on
100's of websites without acknowledgement you would probably be quite
annoyed.

There is also a subtle difference between copyright and plagiarism. 
Copyright includes a fair use clause (which you have alluded to). 
This fair use clause is fuzzy and a lot depends upon the context in
which it is used.

From your example you are suggesting you wish to use a websites RSS
summary without altering it.  What you really should do is summarise
this summary, if it is not meant for public consumption, and remove
any advertising from the page on which the summary of the summary will
be placed.

I would strongly suggest that you read this summary which is very informative:
http://meme.essortment.com/copyrightlawla_rmep.htm

In brief, "Fair Use" permits the use of *pieces* of a copyright work
for the sake of education, scholarly analysis or criticism.  The usage
must be entirely non-commercial, which means you should not use
advertising banners, offer any goods for sale or link to any
commercial web pages.

You and I both know that these rules are constantly broken on the
internet by website owners.

I would suggest contacting the site owners of the RSS feeds that you
wish to use and ask them for their permission (as you have done with
Reuters).  If they refuse this permission then move on to another
site, most website owners are grateful for any links back to their
sites as it increases their readership with a type of free
advertising.

There are a number of RSS directories on the web and I am sure you
will find the types of stories somewhere that you want with the
restrictions that you want.  Off the top of my head I can think of
http://www.newsisfree.com, http://www.syndic8.com and
http://www.feedster.com that may be of use to you.

I hope this answers your questions in this complicated area.  If you
are still a little confused please ask for clarification and I will do
my best to help.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by bbogdan-ga on 10 Jun 2004 06:09 PDT

Hello Palitoy,

Thank you very much for the quick and detailed answer (off topic: this
forum is great, you are paying for answers but you get what you pay
for: a detailed and well documented answer).
I have read all the articles you have provided and they have been of much help.
I am still a little confused (not because the aswer was not good but
because it is a very difficult subject).

Here it goes:

If I do not place any banners on the pages with the news but I still
have links to other sections of my site which have advertising is
there any problem? I must mention that the advertising doesn?t even
cover the hosting of the site not to speak for the cost of
administrating it.

If I parse thought the web pages and not use the rss is there any
difference? Isn?t that the way search engines are doing and they are
all commercial.

You have mentioned these RSS directories they all have advertising,
aren?t them obeying the copyright rules or they might have different
arrangements with the newspapers?

I do not want long answers to these questions as I have taken a lot of
your time and the price I am offering is small (what I can afford).

---

Clarification of Answer by palitoy-ga on 10 Jun 2004 07:12 PDT

Hello Bbogdan

I'm glad you find Google Answers helpful and hope you will continue to use it.

As I am sure you understand the laws surrounding copyright are complex
and often uncertain so I hope I can answer the questions below to the
level you require.

"If I do not place any banners on the pages with the news but I still
have links to other sections of my site which have advertising is
there any problem? I must mention that the advertising doesn?t even
cover the hosting of the site not to speak for the cost of
administrating it."

I think this would be one of the grey areas in this law.  In general a
site can be argued to be commercial if it has only one banner ad on it
(as you are earning money from it).  Unfortunately the fact that the
ads do not cover the cost of hosting the site does not make a
difference.  The Fair Use aspect only applies to non-commercial sites.

"If I parse thought the web pages and not use the rss is there any
difference? Isn?t that the way search engines are doing and they are
all commercial."

If you parse the pages you then have to take into account the sites
terms and conditions most of which will state that the site's contents
are copyrighted.  Search engines do parse the pages but none, to my
knowledge, would publish the site data in whole stories.  In addition
to this most of the major search engines will have the permission of
the site owners to do this.

As a site owner myself I would frown upon anyone parsing my site when
an RSS feed is available.  Remember also parsing the site would still
mean you were only allowed to display a summary of the page at the
very most.

"You have mentioned these RSS directories they all have advertising,
aren?t them obeying the copyright rules or they might have different
arrangements with the newspapers?"

I am uncertain here, I would suspect that sites like NewsIsFree have
agreed with the major providers of RSS files what they can and cannot
display.  Most of these sites are mainly links to the RSS files
themselves and do not actually display them unless the user
specifically asks for the file to be displayed.  Additionally many RSS
files have no copyright information attached to them so can be
displayed without any problem - I make the RSS files at my sites fully
available to anyone without any restrictions.

The bottom line in all of this is to always ask the site owner for
their permission before you take anything.  If they agree to this you
have nothing to worry about.  Ask as many questions to them as you can
and make sure they know exactly what you intend to do and most
webmasters will be able to negotiate something with you.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by bbogdan-ga on 10 Jun 2004 09:01 PDT

If the RSS file has no copyright information attached to it can be
displayed without any problem?

---

Clarification of Answer by palitoy-ga on 10 Jun 2004 09:06 PDT

Thanks for the tip and the 5-star rating - it is much appreciated.

With regards to your final clarification, if the RSS file has no
copyright information attached to it AND there is no restriction
stated on its use on the owners website then you can use the RSS file
without any problems.

Thank you. I will follow you advice and contact the site owner first.