One thread -- person requests another person to delete the copy/paste part of her post due to copyright laws. I saw someone else mention this a month or so ago. The person who mentioned this a month or so ago said it is ok to post "a part" of an article, but that leaves question as to how much is "a part." One sentence, a paragraph? If I post all but one word, it is technically "a part" -- albeit a large part.

In my limited understanding, I thought if you posted the link and gave credit, you weren't violating copyright laws. Of course, I'm not a lawyer or an expert. Also, this is done everywhere -- many sites have posts where a person posts an entire article. I am not saying that just because other sites allow this that this should be common practice here, but if it isn't against the law, then I don't think it should be disallowed. I am not one to always believe when one person says it is against the law. Sorry, I've just been told too much bull in my life to believe everything I hear.

Is there an AW policy about this?

Another infamous thread -- someone posts about needing FDA approval for a certain product. Believe me, I have enough experience with the government to know that it really takes an expert to read through all of the rules/regs and interpret everything correctly -- there are a lot of exceptions.

I think there are very few lawyers here. Even if someone is a lawyer, unless you have hired them as your lawyer, I wouldn't be so quick to take all of the legal advice.

Same holds true for medical advice. It's nice to be able to post here and get feedback and learn things, but we need to be careful about believing everything we read.

I am hoping to get enlightened and/or encourage a mature discussion -- this is not meant to attack anyone.

DANG IT! I typed out a HUGE response and.....arg!!!!!

Summarizing:

Yes, c&p of an article or any portion of it up to more than three words in a row is a violation of copyright law.

Copyright laws is very strict. I worked in PR for years. Trust me. If there was an article about our company in the newspaper, we could not photocopy it and put it on our shelves without express written permisison of the paper - even IF we gave credit. Most publications say in that tiny print that you cannot copy any portion of an article without written permission.

If I wrote an article and submitted it to a publication, upon their acceptance of it, the words became theirs. Although I wrote it, I would need their permission to copy the words. If an article I wrote came out in a mag, I have to have written permission (and usually pay a steep fee) to photocopy it and send it to anyone. Same goes for scanning it and sending it as an attachment.

If I send a customer an email with a paragraph from an article quoted - even with credit - I violated the law unless I got written permission from the publication. Now I could purchase 500 copies of the MAGAZINE and send them out all I wanted.

This is to protect authors and publications from people stealing their words and ideas. Musicians too - you can't copy hymns from the hymnal for instance.

We also had to seek permission, and often pay a steep fee, to link articles to our website. Newspapers and magazines may report ABOUT AP for instance but do not want to ENDORSE AP. So the Tennessean may do a great article on AP but will not let you use it because they don't want to be seen as endorsing anything. They report. If I c&p that article here, yep, it's a violation!

Unless they have a policy stated somewhere (and it does not have to be easy to find), message boards are not usually covered by copyright law. Neither is email, unless stated. So if I write a scathing email to someone and they post it on a board, it does not violate copyright law per se. That doesn't make it right or ethical, but it's not illegal.

If I send you an electronic version of my BOOK and you c&p a paragraph, then it IS a violation of law.

Copyright law is a nightmare - we fought HUGE battles at work. My VP would tell me to make him a copy of an article for him to send to someone. I would refuse because we didn't have written permission. He would fuss at me because it was only "one". Well, I refused to break the law for him or the company. Which he couldn't make me do it, either. He could get mad and say it wasn't fair and grouse around ALL DAY, but he was still wrong and I was still right. Linking to our website was the same as well.

Trademarks and Registered names are a whole other ballgames. For example, Victoria's Secret used to carry a shade of lipstick named after a Metallica song (can't remember the name now now). Metallica sued them, and they had to stop, because the title is copyrighted. Go try to call your WAHM biz "Microsoft" if you wanna find out about trademarks!!

An aside - try to get the rights to the song, "Happy Birthday"! What a nightmare! It's protected every which way by loose! Can't legally play it unless you play a royalty! Truly.

I suggest you go here: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/ to read bunches of info - more than you EVER want to know. And read the fine print on that obscure webpage.

The page covering websites is: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ66.html

I hope I don't get sued - LOL!!!

For remedies and such that I have posted I try to remember to say "this is *not* medical advice, but here is what we've done...oh, and check with your dr." etc.

Also, as far as there not being many lawyers here...there actually aren't that many, but here definitely are at last a few.

And as for copyright...I try to only post links to an article rather than the entire article. But, I have seen ppl post the article with credit to the author and post a link as well.

Kristin :)

I am still confused on the copyright issue. I see the above, and Anise's post....but Jessica posted conflicting info, and I have always been told otherwise as well. I moderate at other parenting sites, and we have always been told we can post articles and such, only if we give credit to the author and source, and a link of it's online. I know they could very well be misinformed too.....

here is a link to read about copyright laws

Library of Congress Copyright office (http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html)


here is a link to the Fair Use Act which is what I was talking about in the other thread:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

the part that is most interesting is this:

the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

and there is more that you can read there.....

hope this clears up the confusion to what I was referring to before.....I only add this to the conversation because a few years back, ivillage really started deleting posts because of copy of the whole article...and when they (and by they I mean their lawyers) looked into it, they gave us this information above.

LOL...me too Jessica. I CL'd over at PP and PS and was told the same thing....and at BabyCenter too. (o: So yes, I am confused still. LOL.

Originally posted by ~Denise~
LOL...me too Jessica. I CL'd over at PP and PS and was told the same thing....and at BabyCenter too. (o: So yes, I am confused still. LOL.

what did you CL at PP?? I CL'd the Induction board! LOL

what I copied above is straight from the copyright law itself....so :confused: