Hello All -

I was just playing a bit and writing about Google's new way of "sharing items" with your friends, and thought I'd see what my friends here think about it. What items? Well, any posts you decide to share from Google Reader. Huh? It seems Google has decided that you can repost posts on your own mini blog, complete with its own RSS feed. Wow. Is it legal? Is it evil? Is it a great way to create a mini magazine for your friends? Is it "all of the above"? Talk about regifting.

Some reference links:

• Google Reader Sharing FAQ
• My own Google Shared Items
• Thread here at WMT on Copyright Issues
• "Is Google Evil" article

Legally, this comes down to issues of "fair use" -- a legal term meaning is regifting your posts OK in this context? What say you?

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Interesting ... and a very good question.

Stumble gives its users 'blogs,' too. They're at least intended for people to review pages, instead of copying them all out ... but they make that a little too easy. On the other hand, they send out substantial traffic when somebody 'tags' you like that. I'll have to look into the Google Reader question ... it takes a little wind out of my sails when I see dozens of gorgeous photos showing up everywhere, with no mention of who created any of them. Both on people's Stumble blogs, and on others they promote through Stumble with lots of affiliate ads everywhere. They make it easy enough to discover and then republish and remarket good content ... I'm guessing Reader has less circulation?

Sounds like one of those "if your non-commercial, we'll look the other way" type thing. It is probably illegal technically, but very few will care unless your using it in a way other than it is intended..

The problem is, google has enough lawyers to throw at these things to make them go away when the little developers get ripped off.