Just this past week there was a major brouhaha in the world of podcasting. Podcasting powerhouse Podshow launched their long awaited PodShow+ podcasting community. Within hours of the site opening thousands of podcasters checked to see if they were listed and to investigate how their podcasts were being presented. That’s where the trouble started.

The ever vigilant community of podcast producers noticed that their show pages on PodShow+ included no link to their original podcast RSS feed, but rather a link to a modified RSS feed generated by PodShow’s software. In the world of RSS this technique is known as Feed Hijacking.

When someone hijacks an RSS feed they capture the feed and regenerate the feed with a new address without the permission of the feed creator. In some cases they may change elements of the RSS feed like the copyright, webmaster email address or anything else they want to change to meet their purpose in hijacking a feed. Feed hijacking is tantamount to theft in the physical world and it’s just one way that your Social Media assets can fall prey to digital opportunists.

In the case of PodShow, the podcasting community responded vigilantly by posting messages to their blogs protesting the situation. Within twenty-four hours PodShow corrected the feature so that each user profile pointed to the original podcast RSS feed.

The damage from feed hijacking is variable. It can be as innocuous as lost statistics as people and directories pick up on an alternate feed for your work. As a result your feed could appear to have significantly lower traffic. The damage is greater if the feed is altered so that copyright information is removed from the feed.

Aside from feed hijacking, content (and not just audio or video content) included in RSS feed is always subject to misuse by people and organizations who want to benefit from the hard work you’re doing. These shadowy entities do things like taking blog and podcast posts and aggregate them onto sites that include copious amounts of Google AdSense links. This technique represents (in my “not a lawyer and don’t play one on TV” opinion) the commercialization of your content. Did you intend your content to be commercialized? If not, they you may not be happy about how you’re content is being used.

And what of podcast directories who place advertisements beside the listings for your personal or company podcast? Some organizations may not care while others may take offense at having revenue generated from their hard work without having an opportunity to share in the revenue. Revenue aside, you may simply object to your content being listed or repurposed on certain sites.

So what can you do to protect your Social Media assets?

The first step to take is to state your intentions for your content both on your blog/podcast site and in your RSS feed. This action provides fair warning to potential mis-users of your content. If you want to do it right I suggest that you review the Copyright Office Basics published by the U.S. government if you’re based in the U.S. One tidbit that might surprise you is the fact that, “No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright.” The Form Of Notice section shows you how to create a proper notice of Copyright that stakes your claim to the work you’ve created.

Another way to go in stating your intentions is to use the template licenses offered by Creative Commons. Creative Commons Licenses are license templates that address the typical issues surrounding content on the web such as commercialization, modification and proper attribution. The Creative Commons Meet The License page allows you to select the license you want then copy a bit of code that you can place inside your website or RSS feed to state your intentions for your works.

It’s important to note that users of the FeedBurner RSS management service have the option to publish their Creative Commons license of choice directly into their RSS feeds automatically.

Once your intentions have properly been stated might want to monitor the web for use of your content. A great way to pick up on uses for your Social Media assets involves using Technorati. By searching on the domain name for your site you can see who is linking back to you and if they are using your content. Here’s an example search for this blog using Technorati.

Technorati can help you find usage of your content on blogs but what about directories? Directories may aggregate thousands of listings into a wide variety of categories and are much more prevalent for podcasts than blogs. It seems as though new directories are popping up everyday. Most podcast directories require you to opt-in to be listed so you should know if you are there. But not all require opt-in. The recent PodShow+ launch included many podcasts that never asked to be included.

The importance of knowing where you are listed can’t be understated. Even if you don’t object to the listing you want to make sure that the listing is accurate. Is the RSS feed correct? Is your branding represented? Is there a link to your proper home page?

When you do find a situation where your content is misused or incorrectly represented you should take steps to contact the approprate parties and inform them of your intentions. In the world of Social Media it’s always a good idea to work through these situations in a civil manner at first. If you don’t get the response you like from your civil attempt at reconciliation then perhaps harsher measures (like calling your lawyer) will be in order.

In conclusion, I highly recommend that you do your best to stay aware of how all your media is utilized on the web. State your intentions in both your RSS and on your sites. Track how others are utilizing or linking to your content.  Be aware of podcast directories and how they display your content. And if you do object to usage then try to solve the issue in a civil manner the first time around.

Protecting your Social Media assets can be a time consuming process but the time you spend creating and distributing your content makes the steps you take to protect that content well worth the effort.

[tags]Social Media, Legal, Copyright, Creative Commons, Feed Hijacking, RSS, Podcasting, Adsense, Feedburner, Technorati, Podshow[/tags]