I rarely if ever look at the copyrights on the sources I quote. Recently, I researched the issue more and figured that with a few exceptions, I am indeed guilty of violating the copyrights of several entities. What's more, I doubt I'm alone. I'd guess most bloggers are guilty too. For example, the Reuters copyright states "Reuters content is the intellectual property of Reuters Limited. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters, the Reuters Logo and the Sphere Logo are registered trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. For additional information on other Reuters Services please visit the Reuters public web site - http://www.reuters.com."
The New York Times has a less restrictive but largely similar copyright, which states
Copyright NoticeCopyright 2005 The New York Times Company
All rights reserved.
All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of The New York Times Company. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
However, you may download material from The New York Times on the Web (one machine readable copy and one print copy per page) for your personal, noncommercial use only.
For further information, see Section Two of the Subscriber Agreement.
To contact other Times departments, see the Site Help area of our Member Center.
Here's the link to their < href="http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html"copyright notice.
Now, I personally don't ask for permission before blatanly stealing off a website. I don't think a lot of the others do either.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - johnboy
What those notices don't mention is your fair use rights.
As long as you attribute the source, and don't steal it in it's entirety, then quoting is fair use under copyright laws.
2 - johnboy
Whoops, didn't read to the end.
If you're quoting the whole article then that's pretty useless.
hyperlink, quote selectively, and attribute, then you're fine.
3 - Dave Nalle
Fair use is fairly loosely interpreted. The uses I sometimes see here on BC where they basically quote the whole article are not acceptable under fair use. A quoted sentence, phrase or short paragraph probably is.
Fair use is basically intended to cover the equivalent of a representative quote from the article, with attribution, and to be truly fair you ought to include a link to the full article.
Dave
4 - Temple Stark
Fair use law should (but doesn't) include that a person should also not misrepresent what they're quoting.
It's always good to throw this reminder out there, frequently.
The idea that complete theft is bad is starting to filter through. The internet has made No. 4 there particulalry thorny for copyright owners:
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. "
If people aren't visiting their site because a person has taken enough where they don't have to, that's likely a violation. Or someone could strngly argue that was the case because the copyright owner's site has advrtsng that is often paid not only on visits but on click throughs. Both are lessened when someone doesn't visit that page.
I think this is where companies may get stricter. And I have mixed, incomplete feelings on whether that's a good thing. If I think of it terms of iTunes' samples of songs, however, I get to listen enough to decide whether it's worth buying and most often my answer means, no buy.
Etc. etc. It is refreshing to read someone recognizing the rights of the creators of art, words, news gathering as well as the consumers.
5 - Temple Stark
Additional thought: I would say the theft of cartoons and pictures for Web sites is a greater concern and a more frequent violaton.
Annie, your thoughts?
6 - Leoniceno
I think that no one has cracked down on bloggers quoting articles because bloggers more often draw visitors to a website than away from it.
7 - Dave Nalle
TS:"Additional thought: I would say the theft of cartoons and pictures for Web sites is a greater concern and a more frequent violaton."
So here's a question. Is there a difference between downloading an image and posting it to your site hosted on your server and just snagging a link to the image and bringing it into your posting using its URL?
The first leaves no visible connection to the source, but the second lets the viewer track down the source of the image if they check the html link. Is that difference significant?
Dave
8 - trenchier
There seems to be an inherent dilemma with
(3) and (4). If I qoute the entire article, I could potentially be guilty of (4) ie. loss of revenue. If I don't quote the entire article, I'm guilty of (3).I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.
Dave
Downloading the picture and attributibg the source is infringement (at least as I ubderstand it). On the other hand, link would probably not be as effective as the picture.
What I'm trying to convey is that the picture would do more for the source (read popularity) than just a link would.
TS
Regrding the iTunes example, I figure Apple is a licensed user of the copyright ie. the songs. I guess that means they can do what they see fit, as long as they remain licensees.And Thanks!
9 - lono
If I think way back to when I got my bachelors in English about 15 years ago, I remember there was a rule they gave us. It was something like if you had 14 words in a row strung together that came from another piece... the paper was thrown out. However, the internet wasn't much of a presence back then. I knew a few guys wh had it. Hell, if I was a professor now... I don't know what I would do about it.
I mean, with the internet as a research tool... how do you not plagiarize?
Oh, and I'll have much funnier things to say tomorrow. I gotta go to bed... like 3 hours ago.
10 - Vidar Hokstad
Trenchier,
You're misinterpreting the law BADLY. The point of (3) is that if you copy the work in it's entirety, or copy a substantial part of it, then you are guilty of copyright infringement, and you'd then likely be hit by (4) too. You seem to interpret (3) the exact opposite way of what it's meant to.
Essentially, REGARDLESS of whether or not you draw traffic away from a site and affect revenue, section 3 will bite you if you post the whole article.
At the same time, if you just post a small part, but that part for instance is the only thing of monetary value in the post, then you might still be guilty of copyright infringement if you post just a small part.
As a general rule, never copy the whole article - stick to a couple of paragraphs of a large work or maybe even a sentence or a single paragraph from a short work.
11 - Steve Rhodes
Dave, the second is worse because you're not only stealing the image, but you're also stealing bandwidth.
Why not just mention you like the cartoon and link to it?
12 - Dave Nalle
Steve, with my background in graphic arts I feel compelled to include at least some sort of illustration with any blog entry I write. Usually one appropriate image. Some I make myself but every so often I just link in an image from another source as an illustration. Generally I choose something where I'm confident they won't mind - like my recent article on medical marijuana where I used a graphic from a group supporting medical marijuana. Since I'm pushing their issue I figure they won't mind me using their image.
Back when I was editing magazines I remember we had to pay for every image we used in print. We subscribed to the UPI photo service and paid a monthly fee to get X number of images from their current library. Now those same images appear in articles all over the web. Presumably newspapers are still paying for them when they include them in their website articles, so if you lift the photo from that site then that photo service is definitely not going to be happy.
Dave
13 - Eric Olsen
good discussion, can't be brought up enough. There are gray areas, but do not copy any article whole. You can even quote fairly extensively, which I do sometimes, as long as you give full credit, link to the source, and identify your edits.
I agree with Dave that you can link to an image if the purpose of that image as it appears where you found it is to promote something your article is helping to promote.
14 - The Theory
to an extent i can understand the viewpoint of "if it's the same cause, the picture bearer won't mind"... most of them probably don't.
However, my dad is a photographer and works closely with the mennonite church. And sometimes churches will find some of his photos online and use them on their own sites without his permission. Even though their church is a cause he is sympathetic with he doesn't like it that they used them.
15 - Eric Olsen
TT, that's a very good point too. I guess I was referring to more literal commercial promotion, ie pics from a move site, artist site, etc
16 - The Theory
that's a good distinction, eric. something like that is probably fine, where it's in their best interests to have the photos out there. for them photos are a matter of promotion, not artistic or illustrative purposes.
17 - Eric Olsen
yes, they've already been "paid for"
18 - Justene
The fair use factors are just that - factors. Then the statute is interpreted by cases. So it will remain a shifting target. The good news is that you'll get the cease and desist letter before the lawsuit.
19 - Dave Nalle
Mennonites approve of photography? I thought strict mennonites didn't allow photographs or video at all.
Dave
20 - Eric Olsen
because they don't want their souls stolen
21 - The Theory
HAH! That's more a 3rd world country belief, Eric.
99.9% of mennonites have no anti-photograph beliefs. only the really uber conservative ones do. Mainly it's the Amish who feel that photo's are a questionable thing because of where the bible says not to make graven images. And it's not so much photos themselves, but photos where their faces are visible.
22 - Lucas
Is merely linking to an image a copyright violation at all? I mean, yeah, it's at the very least rude, but think about it. If I do that, then there isn't a copy on my server at all. The only copy that is ever made is on the user's browser when you page is displayed. In a logical sense, this should be a case of copyright infringement, but in a technical sense, you haven't actually made a copy (though you have caused one to be made).
Of course then again, hyperlinking isn't always legal...
23 - Steve S
you can use stuff 'for your own personal use'. Since I'm not incorporating my blog, and generate no revenue from it, my blog is my own personal use. It's just in my 'front yard' where everyone can see it.
24 - Temple Stark
Steve S - I think that's the part of the law which will be looked at more closely. Will you be judged by your traffic (yep, mostly) but some people consider their Web sites their own personal fiefdom even when they get 1 million hits a month. (and they have a point)
Also if you are making money - via blog ads, google ads, etc then you are benefiting financially from others' works.
Linking to images off of other's servers (so they appear on your site) is not a copyright violation, but it is theft of bandwidth. The sites that care block the practice, so you can link but after a short while then it won't appear. Still because a site DOESN'T put this in place, doesn't mean it's not theft of bandwidth.
Again, it won't usually be a concern until that bandwidth is stolen reaches a high level. Then the crackdown would come.
Of course different people care about theft at different levels. But that doesn't mean the law changes at whim. It will evolve. Soon I think.
25 - Steve S
no ads to my site yet, it's still a blogger (free) site. For two days now, I can't even access my site via firefox. Firefox bounces you to the blogger homepage, only explorer users can see my site. I don't know why that is. Sorry, unrelated, but I"m trying to figure that out.
As for traffic, I don't have a counter, but I get about one comment every two weeks, which indicates my front yard is out on a prairie somewhere.