Posting Entire Articles -- Copyright Issues

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ICanDoThis
ICanDoThis Member Posts: 1,473
edited June 2014 in Comments, Suggestions, Feature Requests

I think it's important to point out that it's a violation of the Copyright law to copy and paste the entire text of an article from an outside source into our forums.

While I appreciate that outside content is very interesting and useful to our groups, I think that we need to reiterate this so we don't end up with NYT problems.

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  • 1Athena1
    1Athena1 Member Posts: 6,696
    edited July 2011

    I really appreciate those who post articles, but you are right, of course. In fact, the mods should have something on this for anyone who may be unaware of the laws.

    A good idea, IMO, is to post two or three paragraphs and then the link.

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  • Bren-2007
    Bren-2007 Member Posts: 6,241
    edited July 2011

    Athena .. I agree with you.  Sometimes I don't have time to wade through an entire LONG article, so just posting a paragraph or two is great, of course with the link for future reading and reference.

    Bren

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  • crazy4carrots
    crazy4carrots Member Posts: 5,324
    edited July 2011

    Well, I agree -- except that I can never seem to get the link to work.  Help!  Guess I need step-by-step instructions.  I use a Mac, if that makes any difference?

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited July 2011

    From my searches, I have found that the sites who object to their contents being copied do not allow to do so.  I believe that the sites who do allow reproduction do not object to their contents being copied.

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  • River_Rat
    River_Rat Member Posts: 1,724
    edited July 2011

    From my experience, just being able to copy and paste does not grant permission.  A copyright symbol has meaning.

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  • RetiredLibby
    RetiredLibby Member Posts: 1,992
    edited July 2011

    The NYT's copyright page.  Yes, they do mind.

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  • pip57
    pip57 Member Posts: 12,401
    edited July 2011
    Linda, I use a Mac too.  I just "mail link to this page' under File and then drag it over.  There is probably a more direct way but if I ask my dh it will turn into an hour seminar!Yell
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  • otter
    otter Member Posts: 6,099
    edited July 2011

    Having spent my entire adult life in an academic (university) setting, I understand the copright concerns we're discussing here.  Internet sources are an especially sticky issue.

    I do hope we can resolve this ethically and practically, and I hope the solution isn't restricting our mention of on-line "articles" to nothing more than web links. 

    I apologize in advance to those I am about to offend.  I hate when someone starts a thread, or posts to an ongoing thread, and provides nothing more than a hypertext link to a web page.  No introduction, no context, no excerpt, no commentary -- just a darn web link I'm supposed to assume is interesting and relevant.  Meh.

    So, yes, we should refrain from cutting-and-pasting entire articles.  We should always provide proper attribution (as per the instructions on the source page, if they offer any).  But, I sure hope it's okay to include quoted statements or paragraphs, making sure they are marked as such.

    Any copyright attorneys in the audience?

    otter

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  • ICanDoThis
    ICanDoThis Member Posts: 1,473
    edited July 2011

    Nope, just a librarian.Smile

     Fair use would be a couple of paragraphs - perhaps the introduction and a link.  I also think it would be really helpful if the poster said why it was important to them.

    Especially for smaller, less well-known publications and blogs, the click on their content may generate additional revenue. The Times doesn't need that, but they are entitled to their content. And, incidentally, following a link doesn't use up your 20 free articles.

    This isn't a big deal, and I can't see the Times suing BCO, but we should be respectful. After all, they write some really good stuff!

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited July 2011

    I'm with you Otter, that would seriously restrict our sharing of information and would allow posters to misinterpret and translate its contents in attempts to explain.

    We must be generating so much revenue for all the sites we hit for info, it's not even funny....

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  • crazy4carrots
    crazy4carrots Member Posts: 5,324
    edited July 2011

    I suppose you could compare a couple of paras about an internet article to the blurbs found on a book jacket.  You're able to read "about" the book without actually paying for the book.

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  • CoolBreeze
    CoolBreeze Member Posts: 4,668
    edited July 2011

    I've modded a forum where this was common practice, and some lawyers found out and we had to stop immediately and take down all the posts.  It was a major news organization that found us.  The kicker is the busy part of the forum where that happened a lot is hidden to all who are not registered, yet they still found out.  Somebody must have told them..

    Considering that forum is 10x busier than this one, that was no small feat to remove all those articles.

    Here is what is legal: You can take a few lines or a short paragraph from an article.  That is called "fair use" and it is for commenting purposes.  Then you link back to the original article so people can see it on the original site.

    I have such a difficult time cutting and pasting on this forum though, that I have no idea how people do it!  I can't make it happen, which is very frustrating.  I'm using Chrome, anybody else experience this? 

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  • ICanDoThis
    ICanDoThis Member Posts: 1,473
    edited July 2011

    Actually, it's the exact opposite of Big Government.

    It's PRIVATE PROPERTY.

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  • otter
    otter Member Posts: 6,099
    edited July 2011

    I don't know how to do it with Chrome, CoolBreeze, 'cause I use Firefox (on a Mac). 

    What I do to make the formatting come out correctly, and to avoid all those buggy elements (like italics when you don't want it, and gray font instead of black... and the always-annoying and unwanted <HTML> </HTML> formatting commands), is really simple:

    First, I use my cursor to block-copy the statement or paragraph I'm wanting to quote from a web page; and I paste the copied material into a blank Word document.  Then, after trimming it down to just the most important section (the part I've decided to quote) and inserting the necessary elliipses and quotation marks, I copy the desired text from my Word document and paste it into the Compose window of the BCO post I'm working on. 

    Add the proper citation, and VOILA!  Usually I do something to set off the quoted text to distinguish it from my own words, such as converting the quoted material to italics, or adding a line of "+++++++++++" above and below the quote, or even adding "quote begins" and "quote ends" at the appropriate points.

    it's kind of cool, actually.  Copy-and-pasting to and from a Word document as intermediary is one way to put line breaks (carriage returns) between lines of text but avoid the obligatory insertion of blank lines that the BCO software wants to do.

    Now, should we venture into the "images" minefield?

    otter

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  • CoolBreeze
    CoolBreeze Member Posts: 4,668
    edited July 2011

    I think it's a chrome issue because I've not had problems with firefox in the past.  

    When I try to past something on Chrome, I get this error message:   Request Range Not Satisifed.  None of the range-specifier values in the Range Request header field overlap the current extent of the extended resource.  Apache 2.2.3 (Red Hat Server) at Community breastcancer.org, Port 80.

    The people who write these articles own their content.  Nobody has any business taking it and reposting it anywhere else.  It's not "big government," the copyright laws are designed to protect artists and writers.  I keep a blog that I work very hard on.  It's a personal blog and is my experience with cancer.  I would find it terrible if somebody took one of my posts and put it elsewhere without my permission or knowledge.  Now, I probably would give permission, but you have to ask.

    Not everything online is free for the taking (although some is).  Flikr has a creative commons license and some people license their photos for re-use - I think other companies out to implement something like that.

    Anyway, the likihood is nobody will know or care if medical articles are reposted here.  But, it is not legal and BCO can be liable if somebody does take exception to it. 

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  • Moderators
    Moderators Member Posts: 25,912
    edited July 2011

    The BCO Community Rules (found at the link at the top of each page on the Forums) include this item:

    "You agree not to violate the intellectual property rights of others, and you agree not to post any content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party."

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  • Bren-2007
    Bren-2007 Member Posts: 6,241
    edited July 2011

    So it is okay to include a paragraph along with the link when we are quoting a source.

    Bren

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited July 2011

    Wow, that means that all the threads containing pics will have to be locked ?

    I am really sorry about that, I found it so very therapeutic

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  • Bren-2007
    Bren-2007 Member Posts: 6,241
    edited July 2011

    Luan .. that doesn't mean the picture threads will have to be locked.

    Bren

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  • CoolBreeze
    CoolBreeze Member Posts: 4,668
    edited July 2011

    Inline links with a picture for commentary can be considered fair use.  You don't want to post somebody's entire catalog of photos.

    A lot of photos are available for linking anyway. 

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