Blogging and Copyright
Several prominent law bloggers have noticed a few over-zealous legal disclaimers on popular blogs and Web pages around the Internet. Most notably, the North Country Gazette made this disclaimer with regards to its content:
In accordance with Fair Use of Copyright: WE FORBID ANY REPRODUCTION in part or in whole of The North Country Gazette.
That’s sort of funny, since forbidding reproduction sounds like “no use” rather than “fair use.” As law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh noted, merely reproducing that statement would be a copyright violation if they were right. Thankfully, they are dead wrong. The administrators of the North Country Gazette eventually removed the notices and rewrote the site’s Terms of Service.
Citing other Web sites and blogs is an integral part of blogging, and if bloggers really couldn’t reproduce anything from other sites, it would eliminate half of what bloggers write about.
The North Country Gazette has never rewritten its Terms of Service. They are exactly as originally published. You’d better learn the ramifications of copyright infringement. YOu cannot take someone’s original work and print it in its entirety, claiming Fair Use. I think you need to read this, better yet, consult an attorney because you’re way off base.
And the copyright notices are still there
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/122606NotImmune.html
COMMENTARY – Blogs, Forums Not Immune From Legal Liability
One of the best articles about reckless postings on the internet. “Is Your Blog Exposing You To Legal Liability” was written by Lawrence Savell and appeared in the online journal. http://www.law.com
http://www.law.com/jsp/llf/PubArticleLLF.jsp?id=1166695602960
take it from a lawyer who specializes in copyright and intellectual property—-Another major issue on the Internet is that of copyright and Fair Use.
In answering the question as to who owns the rights to the content, Mr. Savell states that material that is created by a person is solely owned by that person.
“Copyright infringement is a serious concern…both in terms of the potential use of others’ intellectual property on your blog”, Mr. Savell states. In other words, you can’t lift someone else’s intellectual property and post it on your blog, claiming Fair Use. Savell says that “you have to make sure that you only use on your blog material that you own, which you have permission to use or which falls under the scope of fair use”.
Generally speaking, you can’t take an entire copyrighted article from someone and reprint it on your blog without the author’s permission, claiming you can do so under “Fair Use”. That’s not Fair Use, that’s copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property.
I’m intrigued by this comment because it misses the mark so entirely. First, if the posted Terms of Service were not rewritten, they were altered from when I first viewed them. And while the copyright notices are still there, they are distinctly different from the original notices. See Volokh, Giacalone et al.
More importantly, the comment author suggests I “learn the ramifications of copyright” and “consult an attorney.” The former I already did when I took copyright in law school; the latter I did myself. The article the commenter references is actually very good, but the commenter ignored the last sentence of the second to last paragraph he or she quotes: “[Y]ou have to make sure that you only use on your blog material that you own, which you have permission to use or which falls under the scope of fair use“. (Emphasis added.) Per the provisions of Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act, citations such as my quote in the original post would almost certainly constitute fair use. The commenter also omitted the paragraph in the article that discusses what would be fair use, including criticism or parody. In the case of the over-zealous legal disclaimers, the purpose of the quotation was likely both. Perhaps the commenter assumed I referred to works in their entirety; however, that was never the case from the beginning of the discussion.
Ironically, if we are to belief what the commenter implies, his or her quotes from the Lawrence Savell article may have violated the very copyright principles he or she warned me about. I wonder if the commenter contacted Syndia Torres of American Lawyer Media for permission to reproduce a portion of that article? Probably not, because the amount of reproduced material is small and likely protected by fair use. Which was exactly my original point.
In the meantime, this discussion has not been particularly relevant to LDS topics, so we’ll give it a rest.
Call it whatever you like, you simply cannot take someone’s entire work and republish it, generating income from your own site by drawing readers away from NCG and to your site. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. The author of the work owns ALL the rights. If you want to cite it, comment on it, use the link and first paragraph, you’re free under the law to do so but there’s nothing in the law that allows you to take a copyrighted work and reprint it as you or anyone else sees fit. NCG owns that work.
I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. Let me be clear. I am not talking about wholesale reproduction here. I thought that was obvious the first or second time around. The whole reason NCG’s original policy was laughable was because it prohibited ALL reproduction, “in whole or in part.” No one is quibbling with their prohibition of copying the whole work. But bloggers can reproduce snippets of an article to show the general message.
Let’s try it out. First, I copy your words:
“The author of the work owns ALL the rights.”
I then respond, “Ah, but prohibiting all reproduction, even that which qualifies as fair use under § 107, is not within the copyright holder’s exclusive § 106 rights.” See? I reproduced your work in part in order to make fair use of it. And hopefully I made an end of this absurd argument.