Actions have a consequence despite intent. If you put an RSS feed on the public Internet you made that feed public, despite what your intent was.
Saying otherwise, would be like saying that shooting a gun into a crowd and killing someone isn't murder if you intended for the bullet to make it through the crowd without hitting anyone.
I think we're talking about 2 different things here.
Such licensed artwork (images, icons, etc...) that become part of a commercial application are different than same artwork displayed in an application.
The first is embedded by the commercial developer, the second is initiated and viewed by the user. Otherwise, by just viewing such licensed material in a commercial browser, you'd be breaking the license of the artwork. It's a catch 22 that makes no sense.
Again, the developer is selling a tool to better view content (not selling content). The tool in this case is software. Apple is doing the same, but their tool is hardware and no one complains.
An RSS reader cannot reasonably be said to be "selling" the NYT's content any more than the iPhone or HTC Evo can be said to do so because they're commercial products that display the NYT homepage.
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If you got this far, you have violated my TOS and infringed my copyright.
Saying otherwise, would be like saying that shooting a gun into a crowd and killing someone isn't murder if you intended for the bullet to make it through the crowd without hitting anyone.