Does RSS Imply Permission To Reuse Content?

I didn't write this, but thought it was worth presenting to the GFY world.


With the advent of the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds,
copyright law got a lot trickier. Labeled "really simple stealing"
by AOL's Jason Calacanis, there is still no clear-cut legal
precedent about implied consent to repurpose syndicated content,
but the legal system that protects search engines may also
green-light spammy content aggregators.


Here's the predicament:


A content provider distributes his or her content through the use of
an RSS feed. This feed is open to any who would subscribe. The first
question is: Is there an implied consent to repurpose that material
by republishing it (with proper credit) on a blog or Website? The
act of syndicating (distributing) content may imply that
permission.


The second question is: How are splogs (spam blogs) that are set up
as aggregators of content to attract keyword-driven traffic, that
publish only the headline and snippet of text, that link out to the
original source, and that make money from AdSense different from
Google and other search engines? Doesn't Google do, essentially, the
same thing?


The short answer is that the legal system hasn't really decided for
certain.