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!!!
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