Copyright: quoting, citing, sources etc. in the fora

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Lately I've been seeing a lot of entire news articles and or a lot of information from other websites copy and pasted in the forums. This issue of using other's writing is addressed in forum rule #5:

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If you are going to refer to or use content from other sites or entities [news sites, blogs, personal sites etc.] you must include a link or citation for it. You cannot copy and paste entire articles from other sites or entities as that is copyright infringement, and contributes nothing to discussion. You should not need more than a few sentences, or maybe a paragraph, to make your point in reference to the topic/discussion.

From Copyright.gov ; “Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports.”....the Literature Network abides by the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and of other countries where applicable.

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You might notice that pretty much every website has a copyright statement at the bottom of its pages like "©2007 XXX" or "This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. © 200???? XXX LLC. All rights reserved." That © statement includes: images, graphics and logos; the CSS, XHTML, HTML or other code that went into a site's design; and any written text on said site. So, please remember that anything published on the internet should be treated like real-world print material.

Think about if you had written something, say a novel or some poetry or a doctoral thesis on The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man In The Moon Marigolds ; a book review, essay or short story; or composed some music; or designed a website; or taken some incredible images of your wife/boyfriend/spouse/cat, (and had not made it clear with this material that anyone is free to copy/distribute it, which you will find sometimes) and all of a sudden it/they were showing up on the internet, out of your control, being freely distributed by others. As most of us ourselves are creative types and at least interested in the written word if not writers ourselves, please keep this issue in mind when posting other's work. Thank you for understanding. If you do have questions about copyright please post them here :)

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How would this relate to the News thread?

**Edit**

Use of BBC content (related to RSS feeds in particular, but I believe the same conditions apply for copy/paste articles), from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/rss/4498287.stm

Quote:

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2. Use of BBC Content

2.1 You may not use the Feed or display any BBC Content on any Site that is a web site that is excluded by the BBC (scroll down for the list of Excluded Websites as may be amended by the BBC from time to time).

2.2 YOU MUST ENSURE THAT ALL BBC CONTENT ON YOUR SITE HAS AN ACCREDITATION TO THE BBC IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE BBC ACCREDITATION GUIDELINES FROM TIME TO TIME (SCROLL DOWN FOR THE BBC ACCREDITATION GUIDELINES AS MAY BE AMENDED BY THE BBC FROM TIME TO TIME).

2.3 YOU MAY NOT DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY CHARGE USERS SPECIFICALLY FOR ACCESSING BBC CONTENT OR OTHERWISE COMMERCIALISE SUCH CONTENT, NOR ATTEMPT TO RE-SELL THE BBC CONTENT IN ANY WAY.

2.4 Where possible you must create a functional link back to the BBC News story(ies) summarised by the BBC Content . If you are displaying the BBC Feed where a functional link back to the BBC is not possible, you must display on-screen the URL from which the BBC Content can be obtained (scroll down to the accreditation section below.) You may not directly or indirectly change, edit, add to or produce summaries of the BBC Content or any content on the BBC website nor place any full-story BBC content in an HTML frame-set.

2.5 You may not directly or indirectly suggest any endorsement or approval by the BBC of your Site or any non-BBC entity, product or content or any views expressed within your site or service.

2.6 You acknowledge that the BBC has absolute editorial control over all BBC Content and you accept that the BBC is editorially independent and that the editorial integrity of the BBC Content is the sole responsibility of the BBC.

2.7 Should you receive any enquiries which relate to the BBC or the BBC Content you should promptly refer such enquiries to www.bbc.co.uk/info/contactus.

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Quote:

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Excluded Websites

The BBC's RSS feeds and any BBC content contained in the BBC RSS feeds may only be displayed on websites that do not fall into any one or more of the categories listed below. A site will be deemed to fall within one of the following categories where there is a material and prominent section of the Site that falls within such category.

1. Sites that incite hatred whether based on race, religion, gender, sexuality or otherwise, or promote encourage or facilitate anti-social behaviour
2. Sites that promote, encourage or facilitate violence
3. Sites that promote, encourage or facilitate terrorism or other activities that risk UK national security
4. Sites that discriminate against any specific social group or otherwise exploit vulnerable sections of society
5. Sites that promote, facilitate or encourage illegal activity
6. Sites which are misleading, pornographic, defamatory, or that contain illegal, or otherwise actionable content under UK law
7. Sites which infringe individual privacy (based on the parameters laid down in the "Privacy" chapter of the BBC's Producers Guidelines.)

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Well, it looks like basically same conditions apply, however, most news sites or websites in general have RSS option and have separate/specific Terms of Use regarding it, so, could be on a case-by-case basis.

I remember doing a research when I started the news thread and it seems OK to post the news articles from reputable sources such as BBC on here as long as we state where it comes from.

As part of a project about a year ago I looked into copyright issues like these, and here is how I understand it.

As far as I know, BBC only allows one to publish the content summaries that they provide via RSS (provided that a link is included to the full article), while publishing full articles is prohibited. BBC is actually somewhat special in this case, as most websites don't even allow you to use their RSS feeds for anything but strictly personal use (practically excluding everything but accessing them via your news reader).

Of course, the so-called "fair use" rights are valid for any website, therefore an opening paragraph or another short extract can be copied from any article, as long as one provides a link to the full article and doesn't publish these extracts systematically for a large number of articles.

In any case, I believe that it is simply good manners to just write a summary or copy an extract, and then link to the original article.

I posted a portion of a chapter from a novel recently in the General Literature forum, should I edit the post and delete this?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stieg

I posted a portion of a chapter from a novel recently in the General Literature forum, should I edit the post?

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Well if you aren't Michael McDowell then yes you should snip it down to a few paragraphs.

And I snipped the prologue I posted in "Thriller/Horror Recommendations" thread. Thank you!

fora?

I think it's fori.

"fora" is plural for "forum".

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/fori