Copyright laws and linking to articles

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jgress
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Copyright laws and linking to articles

Post by jgress »

Please do NOT copy whole articles from news websites in this forum. It's AGAINST THE LAW. Copy the first couple of lines and provide a link.

Matthew
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Re: Copyright laws and linking to articles

Post by Matthew »

Is there a specification in the Law about exactly how much we can quote without copyright infringement? A couple of lines doesn't sound like legal and specific language. I often like to quote a couple of paragraphs from a large article and then provide the link to the whole thing, once I think I have sufficiently whetted the appetite of the reader.

jgress
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Re: Copyright laws and linking to articles

Post by jgress »

http://chillingeffects.org/fairuse/faq.cgi#QID824

Question: Can I copy an entire news article from a commercial news web site and post the article on my web site?

Answer: The fair use doctrine, as currently interpreted by the courts, probably would not entitle you to do so. Even though news items are factual and facts themselves are not protected by copyright, an entire news article itself is expression protected by copyright.

A court would apply the four factor fair use analysis to determine whether such a use is fair. In Los Angeles Times v. Free Republic, the court found that such a use was minimally -- or not at all -- transformative, since the article ultimately served the same purpose as the original copyrighted work. The initial posting of the article was a verbatim copy of the original with no added commentary or criticism and therefore did not transform the work at all. Although it is often a fair use to copy excerpts of a copyrighted work for the purpose of criticism or commentary, the copying may not exceed the extent necessary to serve that purpose. In this case, the court found that only a summary and not a complete verbatim copy of the work was necessary for the purpose of commentary and criticism.

The court also found that although the website solicited donations and advertised the services of another website, the overall nature of the website was non-commercial and benefited the public by promoting discussion of the issues presented in the articles on the website. However, the court found that the nontransformative character of the copying outweighed the consideration of its minimally commercial nature.

Finally, and most importantly, the court found that posting entire news articles on the website had an adverse market effect on the copyright owners.

See L.A. Times v. Free Republic, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5669 (C.D. Cal. 2000).

Elsewhere, I've read that you can "summarize" and provide "brief quotations", but nothing more precise. We can use our judgment, but basically it's not OK to copy and paste the whole thing, even with attribution.

Matthew
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Re: Copyright laws and linking to articles

Post by Matthew »

Thanks, I will try to rely on summarising more, and keep quotes to an absolute minimum, especially when I am not criticizing or "transforming" a text.

Matthew
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Re: Copyright laws and linking to articles

Post by Matthew »

Related Question:

Are we allowed to post sermons by TOC priests, or other documents released by Bishops or synods in full on this site, or do they also come under the same legal restrictions as the previously discussed texts?

Thanks,
Symeon

jgress
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Re: Copyright laws and linking to articles

Post by jgress »

Good question. I imagine they do not, since news website and the journalists who write for them get paid per viewer, so if we copy from them we are stealing their revenue. I don't think the same goes for sermons. Still, you should ask permission of whoever is giving the sermon.

Matthew
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Re: Copyright laws and linking to articles

Post by Matthew »

Thanks, Jonathan.

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