Make money with RSS mash

So you've curated content from various places around the web, and now you want to charge for it via a membership site?

Sounds legit.

It should be legal, since you are selling the access to your curated content.
However, I can hardly see anyone buying something like that, given that so much content is free and easy to find.

Not sure about legality of it but it's not a good plan. Yahoo Pipes is old school. If you insist on doing something like this Rebel Mouse would probably be better, you can integrate RSS feeds from blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YT, pinterest, tumblr and various other social media feeds into one page. It looks good too.

It may seem I'm labouring a point, but we're all just saying equivalent of 'it feels bad, so it must be illegal' aren't we?

Firstly, as mentioned above, I do believe that saving people hours of their time is adding value. In fact that's pretty fundamental. That's what we're all marketing all the time, so that's the users taken care of.

And why would the publishers mind if I'm using their content to drive more traffic to their site? (I guess I need to speak to them.)

But, you know, I'm not sure I see the difference between selling ads and charging memberships Chris.

Look, who ever would really go to the trouble of aggregating a mass of carefully chosen stuff if they didn't want to make money out of it?

You can bet your boots Pinterest are sweating blood over the best way of doing this right now. All the discussions around them seem to centre on the fact that they don't want to alienate their users rather than it's going to get them into legal hot water.

The threat of getting my ass sued later down the line.

Hoping to find someone in here who has actually been doing this successfully - or not - and can advise.

It's a highly non technical audience, so most of the members won't have any idea how it works.

Why is this so bad? Just because you are curating content from around the internet and putting into one convenient location for users to view at a price doesn't make it illegal or un-ethical.

I am assuming you grow all your own vegies, milk your own cows, and slaughter your own chickens for food too? Just because it is freely available everywhere in the world it doesn't mean supermarkets are unethical because they combine it into one place and charge for the convenience...?

Think about it people, this structure of business is what many big businesses are based on.

If it is legal, which I don't see why it wouldn't be, then my opinion is go for it. It could be a lucrative business opportunity!

I'd do some research about the legality of using scraped content.

I'd take noones "opinion" on the isssue.

Talk to a lawyer, maybe head down to your local law library and do some research.

I've done some scraping for customers in the past. I wasn't sure if it was legal or not.

At one point I got ticked off at the guy that "hijacked" geocaching.com so I wrote an app that constantly scraped the geocaches off the site. I intended to hand the collection over to the group that this guy hijacked the concept from so that they could get a jump on him and hopefully compete.

In the end, I decided to mind my own business. Sometimes the fun is in the challenge and once you make it work, blah.

Anyway, if you find a good solid legit answer I'd love to know it.

My understanding is that when you publish on the web your content is autimatically "copyrighted" and only you have rights to legally republish it.

However, we all know as IMers that you can regurgetate anything you want as long as you change it up enough that it doesn't resemble the original or you put it in your own words, or mash the content up with new ideas or other content.

Some sites allow syndication, like ezinearticles so as long as you follow their TOS you can republish to your hearts content.

This is an interesting line though. Data is data. If a house is for sale, there is an address. Is an address copyrighted? How can it be proved that you "scraped" the data and even if you did is it illegal? Now if you move into the description of the house, you may be moving into copyright territory.

No matter what, many of us out here are doing nothing but giving you guesses as to what's illegal and what's not.

You should definitely talk to a pro or two and then you'll know. :-)

If you have a question about legalities this is not the place to ask it. No disrespect intended to those who have replied previously, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they are not qualified to answer the legal questions you have. This won't stop people offering their opinion, but that's all it is; a lay person's opinion. Speak to a lawyer in you want a definitive answer on this; "the Warrior Forum told me so" won't stand up in court.

Hope this helps.

DRUDGE REPORT 2013® is an example of a Web site that is curating content and making a fortune.

Now, the site isn't charging membership fees ... revenues seem to come primarily from advertising. The site essentially republishes headlines (sometimes rewrites them) ... I'm no lawyer, but I'm guessing this would fall under Fair Use according to U.S. Copyright law.

So really liked this thread but man you guy's can bust some balls can't you lol...
But really,who knows how much education any one person has when they ask a question,or try to comprehend the answer to the question? sarcastic comments are fine upfront,I take them as being on the funny side of the intent but once it goes past that then I got to ask just who does it help to make more and more annoyed types of comments?