How do you preventing contents theft via RSS

[haaba]

Does any one know and effective way to restrict or completely block RSS feeds? contents of my forum is being copied wholesale by some bastard. Filing DMCA and all that is having little effect.
I think someone in a post in this forum said something about blocking his IP address, that has had no effect, does anyone know what I can do to stop this contents thief?

Thanks

[kh99]

You can of course turn off your external feed. You can also limit the length of the descripion so they can't get the entire article from the feed (it uses Settings -> Options -> Forum Display Options -> Length of Thread Preview Text, but this also affects the forum display).

Also, the feed only works with public forums but occasionally someone asks about having it be members only (but that makes it a lot less useful because people have to be logged in to use it). Anyway, you could search for that if you're interested.

Other than that I don't know what you could do. Really, anything you make visible to guests can be stolen (and even if it's members only, it's easy enough if you allow anyone to register). The feed makes it easier, but even without that, if someone wants it they will get it.

[LifesGreatestGift]

What I have considered working on and coding is this,
User registers. If he wants RSS access he must go to [coded page] and request RSS access key, then recode the rss php file to check for access key, if key = valid, resume feed, else syndicate "you do not have access to this feed. please register and generate an rss access key". then the RSS url would resemble mysite.com/rss?accesskey=ds76f8s7d6d7d68sss7D7d6f7

something like that.

[Digital Jedi]

Though I'm pretty sure just setting the RSS preview limit to something low will do the trick.

[abdobasha2004]

best solution is to block the ip of the sites that grabs your rss via .htaccess

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by LifesGreatestGift

What I have considered working on and coding is this,
User registers. If he wants RSS access he must go to [coded page] and request RSS access key, then recode the rss php file to check for access key, if key = valid, resume feed, else syndicate "you do not have access to this feed. please register and generate an rss access key". then the RSS url would resemble mysite.com/rss?accesskey=ds76f8s7d6d7d68sss7D7d6f7

something like that.

What stops them from registering accounts to get their key?

[Toorak Times]

Why have your RSS alive if you do not want to syndicate?

I can't see the problem as I use RSS feeds from a whole variety of sources.

I mean it is Really Simple Syndication, eh?

As long as they leave the link back to your site I wouldn't worry, or if not ask them to do that!

Honestly, I have RSS feeds from mate's Blogger sites and they are rapt because their readership has risen hugely eh!