Expert Opinions on Professional Blog Syndication

I am interested in hearing from other larger service who have several affiliate agreements for syndication of their blog works.

I am excited to offer my content more widely but wanted to check with some wiser souls before setting up the agreements.

* Any big rules or hints for allowing others to repurpose your material (do you send always from RSS feed, or allow them to pick and choose what they want)?

* Any byline or attribution format standards you find work better than others?

Dawn

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Permalink Reply by Des Walsh on May 8, 2007 at 7:43pm

Not answering your question fully, but it's worth looking at the creative commons options for sharing/protecting your work - much more flexible than standard copyright and less confusing (for me) than "copyleft". Link is http://creativecommons.org/

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Permalink Reply by Dawn Christine Khan on May 8, 2007 at 9:02pm

Des, this is really helpful.. Thanks so much my friend!

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Permalink Reply by Rich on May 9, 2007 at 12:20pm

Des provides an excellent resource (one of my favorites). While I wouldn't call myself a syndication expert, I think most blog syndication agreements are unique to each author and distributer. There are lots of formulas out there. We've entertained several, some formal and some not-so-formal.

I would suggest considering each agreement independent of the other. In most cases, you stand to gain more than you risk by having blog posts cited or even republished in part or whole, provided there is a link back to your blog and/or, at minimum, credit for your work. The only time it has been an issue for us is when a spam blog (or slog) began running full length posts without attribution. In sum, the "splog" was being sourced for our articles before our blog (where the content originated). The readers of the splog were then driven to ads or other parties (whether those parties were aware is subject to debate).

More to your second question, most attributions are linked by a byline or by the headline if the post is being republished in total. But regardless of the link, syndication (paid or not paid) will likely be in your best interest. Hope this helps. I'm not an attorney, but copyright laws skew toward the author as long as you can prove first appearance, eg. the moment you post.

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Permalink Reply by Dawn Christine Khan on May 9, 2007 at 4:27pm

Thank you Rich and Des. For me I was looking to closely model the standard practice.. what I have learned from my survey to date (checked with some of my other experts) is that there really is no standard.

That said, it was a great learning experience, and today using the CCL details Des provided, I am now on the road to re-syndication. Very exciting to see something that can help others with their career get wider appeal.. that is great!

Dawn
http://hfcn.blogspot.com/