New copyright lawsuits

[BrianR]

link here

I'm a little afraid to post the article.

Discuss at will.

[glatt]

That's interesting. If the newspapers start suing people who post their stuff, then I think it will just speed the decline of the newspapers.

[classicman]

Should we be concerned here on the cellar?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes.

One defendant who is ready to settle is Fred Bouzek, a Virginia man who runs bikernews.net, a user-generated site about hardcore biker news. He was sued last week on allegations the site ran a Las Vegas Review-Journal story about police going under cover with the Hell’s Angels.

[Pico and ME]

Not if all you do is post a link. In your case Classic, yes, because you copy and paste.

[classicman]

Gotcha, So noted. Not gonna be good for those who don't like or want to click on links.
Is there something we could or should do for those that are already done or just stop going forward?

[glatt]

It's generally OK to quote a sentence or two of an article as part of your post where you summarize what the article says in your own words and explain your take on the article in your own words and link to the whole article. Fair use.

But pasting an entire article is a bad idea.

[Lamplighter]

This is reminiscent of the days of the copy machines.
I suspect it will end up the same, where "fair use" will determine
what can and can not be done.
It may do away with full (complete) copying of text,
but editorial- or partial-quote use with credit will probably be OK.

Fear not, attorneys always work by keeping your best interest in mind

[Undertoad]

It pays us to understand Fair Use:

In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

1. The Cellar is not an official 501(c)3 non-profit organization, but it is still roughly a nonprofit educational site. We have that going for us, although google ads on the IotD blog view get us $20 each month, so someone may not agree with that.

2. Is it 20 years old and nobody looks at it? Or is it a fresh news story that we've just blatantly stolen?

3. Did we just blatantly copy the whole thing? Or did we select 20 seconds of a song, or two paragraphs of a story?

4. Because we copied, are people less likely to seek out the original? Including the link to the original makes it more likely, so always do that.

The sense of it is: money-making pics might be dropped or made smaller; money-making stories should be summarized or cut.

[Undertoad]

Or, you know, what Lamp said.

[Shawnee123]

How is this different if you are, say, writing a term paper for Current Events class, and quote a part of a magazine article, or a book, or whatever? If you cite, and include the source in the foot (or end) notes, it's OK to do so, right?

So as long as we're not cutting and pasting entire articles (or giant sections of them, which always seemed careless to me anyway, didn't we all write a paper or two in our lives where we had to cite sources, and we should know better?), and we credit the source and link to the source, it should be OK, no?

[Happy Monkey]

You're never safe from a lawsuit, but you should win it if you used a short cited quote, and have the money, time, and inclination to fight it.

[Flint]

For those who didn't already know that pasting entire articles and/or not providing links to copy/pasted text was poor netiquette:

• SUMMARIZE THE PART OF THE ARTICLE THAT YOU FOUND INTERESTING, I.E. WHY ARE YOU POSTING THIS?
  
• PROVIDE YOUR OWN PERSONAL REFLECTIONS, IN YOUR OWN WORDS, DESCRIBING YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE SUBJECT
  
• IF NECESSARY, QUOTE SMALL BITS OF THE ARTICLE (A SENTENCE OR TWO) THAT DIRECTLY RELATE TO YOUR OWN, ORIGINAL POINT
  
• ALWAYS PROVIDE A LINK TO THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE, SO THAT INTERESTED READERS (IF THERE ARE ANY) CAN READ MORE ABOUT IT

[Getgo]

Better delete all the picture threads.

[sweetwater]

The Shirley Sherrods of the world would appreciate links to the original, full content, I'm sure. That and a proper citation for excerpts would satisfy all but the most vicious lawyers, wouldn't it?
(Maybe we need another emoticon, something like a nekkid dude wearing a barrel, holding a sign saying "Please Don't Sue Me!")