Subject: Re: who is the entry author?

From: "Bob Wyman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:09:17 -0400

On 7/30/07, Zhiwu Xie <[email-masked]> wrote:
> e.g., if atom:right says do not copy, does it mean this
> atom entry cannot be aggregated by other Atom feed
> aggregator or the contents cannot be distributed within
> the atom:content?
It would not be sensible to say "do not copy" since copying would be
necessary if only to read the "do not copy" statement. The situation is just
as it is with web pages and other bits of distributed data -- copying which
is facilitative cannot be prevented and is permitted under an implicit
license. In the case of a web page, the implicitly permitted copying is that
needed to display the page in a browser. For a syndication format like Atom,
the implicitly permitted copying is that which is required to permit
syndication to be performed. (i.e. reading of feeds, temporary storage in
aggregators, etc.) Nothing in the feed document can diminish this implicit
license to copy a syndicated item. However, in the absence of a statement
that grants additional rights, one should assume that syndication and
display is the ONLY thing you're allowed to do with syndicated content. The
purpose of the various "rights" elements is to define under what conditions
readers have *expanded* rights to work with syndicated content. For
instance, without a statement granting you appropriate rights, you must
assume that you can't produce derivative works or do various forms of
copying that are not related to the process of syndication or display.

As for your specific questions:
* Whether or not there is a rights statement, you have an implied license to
aggregate syndicated data.
* Unless explicitly granted, you have no right to copy the content of one
entry into the atom:content of another entry. Doing that would be the
production of a derivative work.

bob wyman