Is Pulse.me Stealing Content With Backing And Support From Microsoft?

Pulse just acknowledged in the comments they are actively scraping RSS feeds from publicly available content (in addition to partnerships with some publications) - which is usually a violation of copyright law.

If Pulse is in fact violating copyright law (not saying they are), how is it a violation when it's behind a password protected user account, but not when it's behind an app that requires authentication to access?

WSJ content for example was behind a pay wall. But the difference is really that before they were an "app" running as a browser. Now they are a Website republishing the content.

The user experience may be the same, but the difference is equivalent to the difference between cutting a picture out of a magazine an pasting it on your wall, and taking a picture out of a magazine, scanning, it and publishing it to your website.

Interesting read! Thanks for the info, Kelly!

Pulse is gorgeous but, it is just Tiles.js with a readability scraper.