I always thought it was a good thing if someone else picked up your feed for use on their site but then the list of things I don't know is pretty big. What are the downsides to someone using your RSS feed? I only ask as I've seen some sites where the owners said you had to ask permission before grabbing their feed. Or is that just a tricky way to get you to give them your email address...
You feed can be used on a site that is nothing but feeds; many folks feel that a site that offers nothing but feeds = spam site. A webmaster could be earning big money with e.g. A-d-S_e_n-se using the content that you worked hard to produce. AmCy
yep, with a feed, other sites can automatically use your content. Without a feed, at least they have to copy and paste.
I wonder if it would help if you included a disclaimer on your site- something like: "Feeds are for private use and may not be used for commersial use. Content syndicated from thsi site are copyright www.mysite.com"?
That's a good idea, but it's not practical, IMO, because if you don't allow folks to make a little money off your content, then pratically no one will use your feed! For example, a feed from my flagship blog is being used on some great, high traffic websites. Should the folks who use my feeds have the right to put AS ads next to my content? Sure, why not, but within reason, of course. As long as they are using my feeds properly, i.e. links within my articles that point back to my blog are functioning, and the affiliate links that are sometimes included in my articles are functioning, etc. I am OK with it. When I find a website that is abusing my feed (disabling my links, etc.), I simply send an email instructing the webmaster to use my feeds properly or don't use them at all. I've done this twice and both times the webmaster in question complied immediately. Remember, services like Feedburner can modify your RSS feed so that certain keywords in your feeds will be converted into links to amazon.com using your amazon affiliate ID, thus enbaling you to generate extra revenue when folks use your feeds. And if your feed is popular enough, you can apply for AdSense for RSS feeds, which can earn you some great money when your feed is used on popular sites (I'm no longer with AdSense, but it looks like YPN is gearing up to offer "YPN for Feeds" like the AdSense deal. I'm looking forward to that .) AmCy