Publishers Upset Over Apple's Opt-Out Terms for Inclusion in iOS 9 News App

[SlCKB0Y]

Actually no. The language states that if the publisher is sending out content on their RSS FEEDS that they are not legally allowed to do, they agree to indemnify Apple. Publishers should not be publishing content they do not have the right to publish in the first place.

Just because you are entitled to publish content doesn't mean someone won't sue you claiming that you don't have the right. By the time you have demonstrated ownership you have spent an awful lot on legal fee's and that is what Apple seems to be trying to worm out of.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

I must be missing something here. If the authors can simply OPT OUT then what exactly is the problem? Are people just looking for anything about Apple to argue over?

You shouldnt have to actively act to preserve your copyright.

It's no different than any other property - I can explicitly give you permission to use my property, you cant just say "hey i'm going to use this unless you tell me otherwise".

 

[SlCKB0Y]

I'd cry tears of joy if Apple ever contacted me about publishing my content to nearly 1 billion customers in a built-in feature of their OS. If I were a news publisher, I'd be willing to beg and pay for that privilege.

So, no. I don't think the news publishers are really upset over anything.

That's really awesome for you, but until they actually try and use your content, not only does your opinion not matter, it doesn't change copyright law.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

One other point is that as long as Apple's RSS parser has it's own distinct user agent string, it will be exceedingly easy to block it at the http server or to send a different RSS feed to it.

 

[MH01]

You are talking gibberish. Links are a defacto part of RSS feeds

I was referring to links in the content of the article itself. Not the structure of an RSS feed.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Plus, even per the BBC article, "According to Graham Hann, the head of technology, media and communications at the law firm Taylor Wessing, the terms of the deal are broadly in line with industry standards." It's all reasonable (and necessary) stuff. Don't have an RSS feed if you don't want to be a part of it.

You're quoting completely out of context and misrepresenting the article. He wasn't commenting on the legality of redistributing content from an RSS feed, he was commenting on the terms and conditions in the email. He said they we fairly common in the industry but that having them as opt-out was ridiculous and not legally binding.

 

[MH01]

The opt out is not for liability it is for the feeds. The liability mention is just a heads up if you rebroadcast content you don't have the rights for it is on you not us. Again completely unnecessary on apples part but given a huge number of publishers are clueless they could consider it free legal advise.

Apple wasn't going to be on the hook for improperly syndicated content by web publishers in the first place.

Everything in that email was for the benefit of the seemingly overwhelming number of idiot publishers.

We would be better off if the domains were just confiscated from any publisher complaining about this.

What a silly silly comment. You can start with BBC mate, there is the first one complaining. Confiscating domains.... Ha ha ha ha ! Wow!

Read the BBC article bud, while you have an issue with publishers it seems, does not mean they are idiots! There are some very reputable agencies that make chumps on MR looks like idiots with the content they publish. And yes thier IT departments also know how thier sites and feeds work, as do thier legal teams.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

I feel like publishers don't understand what RSS feeds are for.

Do you know how an RSS reader/client works? You subscribe to a feed and the reader pulls the RSS directly to your client which you consume for individual use.

Apple is pulling content to a centralised server, changing the format of it, redistributing it (which is important with regards to copyright) and then adding in ads to monetise the service.

These two processes are not even remotely similar.

 

[MH01]

They have to publish the feeds including the ads. RSS has only been around since 1999 people. All this stuff has been hashed out.

This all boils down to apple going above and beyond what they needed to do and taking crap for it from people who don't even know how their own websites work.

RSS feeds are not just used by apps. Yes you can put in calls to 3rd party ad servers .

Question is, with the news app, can you make calls to 3rd party ad servers or only iAds ?? See the difference?

 

[SlCKB0Y]

The first S IN RSS stands for syndicate which means to rebroadcast.

The name of the protocol has absolutely no significance in terms of the copyright laws which attach to content.

 

[MH01]

Just because a blogger didn't come to specifically tell you about it on macrumors.com forum, doesn't mean you can ignore it. I think once bloggers figure out that their content is being used and they are no longer getting clicks, etc, they will get very angry very fast.

Also, why are you trolling? Why not just comment, why do you have to immediately attack me instead of the comment I made? Says a lot about you... take a breather, this isn't the end of the world. Also, please schedule something with a therapist. I can't imagine how you treat others outside the internet. Do you beat your wife, kids?

Just don't get angry, plain and simple.

People are passionate on MR. Some a very passionate and find a need to defend apple over everything. It's not actually personal against you, it's personal that you question something about apple. I call them apple apologists.

Most of us are keyboard warriors. Without the keyboards, harmless geeks

 

[Winni]

Agree with others, it is a publicly available RSS feed so **** off. They should be thrilled Apple is including them in the app at all, thereby driving clicks to their websites. Talk about biting the hand.

Firstly, RSS feeds are not driving clicks to a website -- if anything, they do the exact opposite by design. The whole purpose of an RSS feed is to make it unnecessary to visit the website from which the feed originates.

Secondly, Apple made it very clear that they intend to commercialize other people's content WITHOUT COMPENSATING THE CONTENT OWNER:

"You agree to let us use, display, store, and reproduce the content in your RSS feeds including placing advertising next to or near your content without compensation to you."

This is NOT what publicly available RSS feeds are there for, and this is NOT what RSS reader apps are supposed to do. The purpose of an RSS reader is to provide the user with the content that he subscribed to - NOT to swamp him with ads. RSS feeds are a service to the reader, not a service for third party advertisers.

Thirdly, and this is the real issue here: Since when is it okay that ANYBODY can send you an eMail imposing terms on you? Imagine I send YOU an eMail saying that you owe me a million bucks and I would get away with it in a court of law and you actually would have to pay me the money because you simply didn't answer back. This is how contracts were made in the old Roman Empire, but even then it required that both parties AND a witness had to be in the same place at the same time. "A" would say "this is my house" and "B" simply would not say anything and "C" would then testify that the house was sold from "B" to "A". While this might seem similar to what Apple is doing, Apple's action is at best an abuse of that very old legal concept.

 

[Force10]

Google does this with everything on the internet - they use it unless you specifically tell them to opt out and even them they fight it
I think this is a sucky thing to do but at least Apple is flagging it.

 

[Winni]

It's funny to me that these companies put RSS feeds up themselves, published public content in a machine readable format to be combined in news feeds.

Apple makes an app that automatically uses those RSS feeds, which again are published by the content creators on purpose to make it easier for people to read their content.

And they lose their s**t. Do you want people to read your content or not? If you don't why are you still publishing RSS feeds?

Not all bloggers are companies. But even if they were, that's not the issue here. You conveniently ignore that there is a BIG difference between wanting people to read your content and letting someone else monetize your content without your explicit permission. You also ignore Apple's very one sided and entirely unethical business conduct.

 

[ginkobiloba]

Are you serious? That is not even close to being the same. ITS A PUBLIC FEED. READ A BOOK

Apple is using a public feed. End of statement. There is nothing illegal at play. Look up Rockmelt or any other aggregator that used to be, it's not wrong. It's what RSS feeds were designed to do. If the content creators don't like how they will be used, then they simply can cease the feed.

Stop with erroneous "what if..." statements. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.

1- A public broadcasting of a feed doesn't mean it is not copyrighted. It doesn't mean you can do anything you want with it. If a song is played over the readio , it is still copyrighted. You can't record it and sell it to someone else without authorization.If a movie is publicly broadcasted on TV , is still copyrighted and you can't do whatever you wish with it. Same thing with texts ( unless they are explicitely under some form of Creative Commons rights )
( and yes, I know a thing or two about copyrights unlike you. In fact i make my living by creating copyrighted audiovisual content )

2- The point of my "mail" was that you CAN NOT legally bind someone in a contract by a tacit accord. This what my mail meant, and that is what Apple is doing with that mail. They are legally binding you to reinburse their lawyer's fees ( wich I guess are not the cheapest on earth) if someone sues them. Without even you knowing that you are on their app, or asking to do so, because you missed their mail.
That is NOT how contracts work. A contract is an OPT-IN.

 

[Force10]

Google Reader did the same thing. Only the difference here is Apple is involved. Remember Readers biggest flaw? It was shut down. That's it. Apple's making the same product that should work even better on devices and people are upset?

This is a modern take on an old idea.

Google did much more - they pulled content from web pages without permission and redisplayed it in their own pages. In fact most of their business model is based on collecting other people's information and using it to sell ads.

 

[Force10]

Not all bloggers are companies. But even if they were, that's not the issue here. You conveniently ignore that there is a BIG difference between wanting people to read your content and letting someone else monetize your content without your explicit permission. You also ignore Apple's very one sided and entirely unethical business conduct.

So if Apple is unethical in the case, Google is even more so as they take much more content without permission. News articles, videos, music, books, etc - they take and use and it is up to the rights owner to protest, not Google to ask permission.

 

[AlecZ]

Ever heard of IP or copy right laws and royalties tied to using that IP? You think you can just go and take some else's IP and repackage it with your own advertising and thru that monetize it? You end up paying royalty fees always when you do that. What Google is doing is steering the trafic to publishers web site and not repacking it to some proprietary application format. Read the BBC article.

Google does show that paragraph of text in the search results next to their ads, if that counts.

 

[applepuree]

This issue, as I see it, isn't the use of RSS but that Apple expects an indemnity if Apple gets prosecuted because of the contents.

If we receive a legal claim about your RSS content, we will tell you so that you can resolve the issue, including indemnifying Apple if Apple is included in the claim.

btw does this also mean RSS reading is returning to OS X ? It was removed some time ago unless you got a 3rd party app.

 

[h00ligan]

That's some seriously theiving behaviour

This issue, as I see it, isn't the use of RSS but that Apple expects an indemnity if Apple gets prosecuted because of the contents.

btw does this also mean RSS reading is returning to OS X ? It was removed some time ago unless you got a 3rd party app.

Safari still processes rss with subscriptions

 

[paysdoufs]

IMHO, this is some downright disgusting business behaviour that Apple is displaying here. And proof that this company has gained way too much power. Time to move on and spend as little as possible on future Apple products, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[ginkobiloba]

IMHO, this is some downright disgusting business behaviour that Apple is displaying here. And proof that this company has gained way too much power. Time to move on and spend as little as possible on future Apple products, as far as I'm concerned.

I still think Apple does things more right than wrong, especially when it comes to internet and private data related things. But they have to be called upon when they make insanely stupid things like the thing we're talking about here.

 

[IvanX]

So the same publishers who are more than happy to sell you stuff that auto-renews unless you opt out are now up in arms when the shoe is on the other foot? No sympathy from me.

 

[ginkobiloba]

So if Apple is unethical in the case, Google is even more so as they take much more content without permission. News articles, videos, music, books, etc - they take and use and it is up to the rights owner to protest, not Google to ask permission.

Google is on a planet of their own. I think they're the most despicable tech company on earth.

 

[Arndroid]

I think people can argue about copyright, ownership of content, generating revenue from other peoples work etc, and I can see both sides of the argument. The way I look at it is, they are RSS feeds, and Apple is doing nothing different to hundreds of other RSS apps out there. Except....

To actually send an email to those with public RSS feeds saying they "agree too..." a bunch of what sounds like legally binding conditions, unless they opt out. That to me is almost Orwellian in its level of manipulation, and stinks of high arrogance. If it ever holds up in court it will be a sad day for our freedoms.

That's not what the letters say at all though. All Apple is doing is telling publishers what they should already know. The email is not some legal contract it is simply pointing out that publishers who broadcast content via RSS are responsible for actually having the right to do so. If Apple never sent the email it would still be true.