Automatic RSS content by keyword

Such behavior would not only be illegal (copyright infringement) but it is is a common behavior by spammers and others who seek to profit off other people’s content.

What is the reason that you want to do this sort of thing?

I beg to differ!

Content directories an RSS feed suppliers actively encourage their feed to be published.

Most of them only publish an excerpt of their 10 latest offerings.

Links are then provided BACK to their site to read the whole article / feed.

I am quite aware of the legalities of this matter, please do not teach me how to suck eggs!

As long as you have permission to republish such material, yes. But just because it’s in a feed somewhere does not automatically give you permission to republish it, or even a portion of it. If I found my material on one of your sites, link back or not, I’d be pissed. It’s happened to me before (mostly on Blogger based sites), and I’ve gotten people kicked off their hosting providers for it.

You do not copy other people’s content without permission. Ever.

I’m just saying, is all. It’s uncommon for somebody to use such tools for a legitimate purpose. Mostly it’s spammers and/or people trying to make a spam blog look real by stealing other people’s content and then sticking ads all over it.

And what about WP-O-Matic?

Is that also a spammers or thieves tool?

I think that the author of that plugin might just disagrree.

All I’m trying to do is automate the process a little more.

Give me the address of your feed and I’ll avoid it like the plague!

And what about WP-O-Matic?
Is that also a spammers or thieves tool?

Yes, for the most part. So is FeedWordPress and any other so-called “autoblogging” tool.

I think that the author of that plugin might just disagrree.

I have no doubt of that, and I’m not saying that there are not legitimate uses of these tools, because there are. However, for the most part, these are spam tools. There’s legitimate reasons to use these tools, and there’s illegitimate ones as well.

All I’m trying to do is automate the process a little more.

“AutoBlogging” itself is a rather repulsive concept, IMO. Write your own content instead of stealing other people’s content for your own benefit.

If that is indeed what you are doing, of course, as you still have yet to explain what your actual purpose is.

Give me the address of your feed and I’ll avoid it like the plague!

No, I will not opt-out. Instead, you must make the feed authors and the copyright holders opt-in to your scheme. Don’t steal content without permission.

And know that if I do find my content (from any of my several dozen sites) copied onto your systems, then I’ll do my absolute best to shut you down. This is not a threat, just a statement of fact. I’ve done it before, I’d do it again. And most bloggers would agree with me on that.

Ok.

I’ll forget the whole idea. I see exactly where you are coming from and I can’t disagree!

My intentions were honest and legitimate but on reflection I cannot afford any sort of cloud that will affect my business hanging over me.

I am in the business of selling websites and hosting, which of course is my bread and butter. This would have been a sideline which I thought may have been of use to the community if there already wasn’t one out there.

So, it’s gone!

I do have one site which uses WP-O-Matic as an experiment but I shall remove it, I’m moving all blogs over to a new server in any case so any content it has produced will disappear.

The legal implications don’t seem to come into it at this stage, more the moral ones!

If I need plenty of content to show in my sample websites I’ll just use a common database.

Regards,

Robin.

Again, let me reiterate that there’s nothing specifically wrong with using tools like these. It’s all about purposes.

The thing that’s wrong is using other people’s content without their explicit permission. These sorts of tools can do that, and are often used to do that, but they can also be used legitimately, much like a knife can either cut food or be used to stab somebody. ??

Which was the point of my initial question in the first place: “What is the reason that you want to do this sort of thing?” The only reason I asked is because often tools like these are used for bad purposes instead of good ones. If your intentions are good, and you won’t be stealing content, then by all means look at FeedWordPress and WP-O-Matic and other RSS feed posting tools.

I sell hosting for blogs.

Many of my customers are in favour of WordPress but I also offer them the blogging software of their choice should they not wish to use it. [strange I know!]

I have a fair selection of premium themes for WordPress so I like them to be able to see the templates “in action” so to speak.

An empty blog doesn’t look that impressive so I was trying to find a way of filling them up with content, preferably different on each theme.

So that’s where this idea started. I didn’t even consider using a common database, but I should have done! The wood for the trees sort of thing!

I also need to make it clear that I do not sell WordPress or other peoples themes.

I am not into making money at others expense, it has taken me eight years to finally make some sort of profit from my investments so I would certainly not be happy if somebody stole my work either.

Ahh.. Take a close look at the WordPress themes extend page:
https://www.ads-software.com/extend/themes/

Notice that every theme has a preview option? All of them have the same content, drawing from the same place. The idea is to showcase several of the possibilities of the theme in different situations. I’d suggest making a database like that and using the built in Theme Preview functionality in 2.6 to show off the different themes, all from one instance of the blog.

Isn’t it okay if you just show the first few lines and a link to the original article for people to read the rest of the article? That’s what google news does and I guess that’s not a copyright breach.

I agree it’s not fair when articles are copied in full from other sites