[sfk]

"The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use. Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use."

I completely agree with this. People should stop arguing copyright matters on a purely technical level. Intent matters. The intent here is that other people should not make money off the RSS feed. This is exactly what happened in this case, so NYT's reaction is perfectly natural.

[latch]

That's what I was thinking too...

Then someone pointed out that Pulse doesn't come bundled with the NYTimes RSS feed - rather it lets people add whatever feed they want. Pulse isn't making money selling NYTimes content, its making money selling a way to consume content.

[sfk]

Is there an authoritative link for this? The article is written in a way that suggests that the feed is an integral part of Pulse.

One of the comments says: "Pulse actually ships with the NYT built in."

Without having cleared this up, it's difficult to judge the matter.

EDIT: If wired.com is not grossly incorrect, I do think that the feed was built in:

"The developers of Pulse, Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta, are bemused, and are planning to contact Apple to fix the problem. They’ll do this by removing the NYT’s feed from the app ..."

[donohoe]

To: ahoythere "By that logic, Safari ships with Apple and CNN "built in"."

Yes - but you bet Apple did actually ask CNN and others beforehand and CNN said Yes. That has been my experience.

[albemuth]

More like CNN and others pay to be included, NYT is getting how much traffic for free here?

[donohoe]

No, not really. I personally think this whole mess is because they pre-packaged NYT RSS feeds and also used that in their screenshots (don't know that last point for sure, but I think thats the case?), and then they make it a commercial app.

Is one thing for a user to add a RSS feed, its another to pre-package it in a commercial app.

Its not about 'free traffic' its about saying 'hey, thats not cool' IMHO. I would also add, until his all came up I wouldn't have guessed it was an issue until I thought about it more.

Disclaimer: I do work for NYT but have nothing to do with this whole drama. I'm just as interested as anyone here. Oh, and all this is my personal opinion and not necessarily that of blah de blah blah blah....

[DrSprout]

It's a link. It's no different from being in the default set of bookmarks. If that's "pre-packaging," anyone who distributes a link to the NYTimes with paid software is guilty of the same thing.

[smackfu]

It's enabled by default.

It wasn't even a very good example, since Pulse is all about showing headlines with photos, and the Times feed didn't have photos in it so it was just a wall of text.

[ahoyhere]

"Built in" and "included as a preset in the default set" are entirely different animals.

By that logic, Safari ships with Apple and CNN "built in". Along with a bunch of other undesirable bookmarks and feeds.

[cabalamat]

If i was Apple, I'd release a new version of Pulse identical to the last, except that the NYT RSS feed was missing. Then the NYT would have no legitimate grounds for suing Apple.

[pixelbath]

Pulse is not an Apple application.

[ojbyrne]

I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't that also apply to any for-sale RSS reader? If it doesn't, perhaps because a user has to add the RSS feed, then couldn't Pulse just do the same thing - ask the users to add RSS feeds (from a "suggested" list).

EDIT: I see the story actually mentions this, and it now makes me characterize this as one of my favorite annoyances, the selective enforcement of copyrights. Big companies get a pass, or a backroom deal, joe startup gets crushed.

[latch]

And why limit yourself to software? If its wrong for a piece of commercial software to consume the RSS feed, surely its wrong for a commercial piece of hardware to allow such consumption as well. And what about network operators?

[lutorm]

That's what I thought too: Since you are using the iPad to display the feed, does that make it commercial?

[exit]

that makes no sense. can i view nytimes.com via an ipad? does apple make money selling ipads? well, i guess they'll have to issue a total product recall then.

at most nytimes could have introduced something like a "non-commercial utilization only" tag to their feed. in that case the ipad bundled browser would also have to block the feed, since apple isn't giving the ipad away for free.

[rbanffy]

> The intent here is that other people should not make money off the RSS feed.

They are not making money off the feed - they have other feeds too. They charge you for the app you can use to read any feed.

If that's so, Apple is charging for a device that makes money off, among other things, the NYT RSS feed. All Apple products should then be pulled out of the market. In reality, every computer and networking device should too.

[Confusion]

  The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the
  NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds

An app doesn't do anything of itself. At best, it can be used to make commercial use of the feeds. The app enables persons to read the feeds. One of these individuals could make commercial use of the feed he choose to download via Pulse, but that is not specifically enabled by Pulse: he would have to take additional action.

Now one could argue that displaying the NY Times feed in the screen shots is commercial use of the feed. But in that case, they should argue that the Pulse advertisement infringes on their copyright. Not the Pulse application itself.

[ErrantX]

I don't buy that.

I can understand if the NYT took issue with pictures of their content being used in screenshots/promotional material (implies endorsement). Or if their RSS was used in any other way to actually sell the app.

I can even understand them contacting the app owners and asking to be removed as a default feed (though that seems irrational it is only their loss).

But forcing Apple to remove it... well that's just a net negative move for everyone.

It's neither a smart or polite move. And the insinuation made was that the app sellers were misappropriating their content - which isn't true!

[extension]

Do you think the developers intended to defraud the NYT?

[clammer]

Actions have a consequence despite intent. If you put an RSS feed on the public Internet you made that feed public, despite what your intent was.

Saying otherwise, would be like saying that shooting a gun into a crowd and killing someone isn't murder if you intended for the bullet to make it through the crowd without hitting anyone.

[raganwald]

Oh? How do the non-commercial creative commons licenses work?

[clammer]

I think we're talking about 2 different things here.

Such licensed artwork (images, icons, etc...) that become part of a commercial application are different than same artwork displayed in an application.

The first is embedded by the commercial developer, the second is initiated and viewed by the user. Otherwise, by just viewing such licensed material in a commercial browser, you'd be breaking the license of the artwork. It's a catch 22 that makes no sense.

Again, the developer is selling a tool to better view content (not selling content). The tool in this case is software. Apple is doing the same, but their tool is hardware and no one complains.

[smallblacksun]

That's not how copyright/licensing works. You can distribute content with legal requirements about what people are allowed to do with that content.

[chc]

An RSS reader cannot reasonably be said to be "selling" the NYT's content any more than the iPhone or HTC Evo can be said to do so because they're commercial products that display the NYT homepage.

[clammer]

This comment (original work) is copyright DTSI. You are not allowed to read it or view it on any screen besides one DTSI has granted license to. Reading this comment on a screen not granted license by DTSI is against our TOS and will be considered infringement upon our copyright.

If you got this far, you have violated my TOS and infringed my copyright.