All Entries in the "Copyright/Fair Use" Category
What Constitutes Fair Use?
Is it fair use to use someone else’s article on your website? If done correctly, yes.
There are two ways to make sure that other people’s content can be used for your website. No. 1, you can ask for their permission. If they say it’s OK then help yourself. But do the right thing and give attribution.
The second way is to visit an article directory and pick the article you want to use. Publish it exactly as you find it. Make no changes. And be sure to include the author’s resource box with links intact. BTW, you can submit your articles to directories too and other people will use your articles.
What Should You Do If Your Articles Are Modified?
I ran across a spammer who had taken an article I wrote and published it to a blog. They used my author resource box and that’s OK, but they also inserted nonrelevant sentences with nonrelevant links in the middle of my paragraphs in the article. So I had an article on pay-per-click advertising that had links in it related to truck tires and other non-PPC-related content. The pages those linked to contained AdSense ads. I reported the sites to Google AdSense.
If this happens to you, fill out a spam report with the search engines and also fill out a Google AdSense report for the site in violation of Google AdSense terms. The AdSense account holder will likely have their account suspended and they will not be able to get another one.
To fill out a Google spam report, go to Webmaster Tools and log into your account. You should see a list of your sites with sitemaps. On that page is a link for reporting search engine spam.
To report an AdSense violation, use the AdSense report form.
Each search engine and pay-per-click advertising company has their own report form. Log into your account and look for that feature to make your report. It is a little time consuming, but if no one reports these people using your content (and mine) in ways that are not acceptable then nothing will ever be done to stop them.
Interpreting Fair Use In The Blogosphere
There is some confusion with regard to plagiarism and what constitutes fair use online. Some people are so afraid to violate copyright laws that they miss great opportunities to see their work expanded.
The blogosphere has its own rules, but those rules don’t discount traditional law. Stealing is still stealing, even on the Internet. But allow me to dispel some copyright infringement myths:
- It isn’t stealing if you attribute the source
- Copyright infringement does not entail using another person’s work if you add content of your own that creates new value
- Fair use entails adding enough content of your own to sufficiently prevent your content from consisting primarily, or only, of another individual’s content
If these guidelines seem a bit vague, it’s because they are. When it comes to fair use and copyright infringement, there are a lot of gray areas. However, there is still enough black and white to draw some lines in the sand.
I’m not an attorney, but these guidelines work for all forms of content online – blogs, articles, website content, etc. Christopher Alan Jennings of the American Law Division wrote a report for Congress titled “Fair Use on the Internet” (this is a .pdf document so it may load slowly) and he said that courts weigh four factors with regard to fair use, whether online or off line:
- Purpose and character of work in question
- Nature of copyrighted work
- “Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole”
- Effect of use of the work “upon the potential market”
In the blogosphere, it is considered acceptable to trackback to another individual’s blog or borrow from their blog and add comments of your own. If you engage in this practice, and you should, then do the right thing and link back to your sources. This is the online equivalent of citing references in your print or off line material. Your link back to the original source constitutes proper attribution. Of course, you could go a step further and identify your source by name, but it isn’t necessary.
An example of proper attribution would be the above link to the “Fair Use on the Internet” report. By linking back to the original source, you give your readers a chance to check your facts to see if you got them correct but also to see if you are interpreting them correctly. You let the readers be the judge. This will go a long way toward increasing your credibility.
Before you use material from another website or blog, ask yourself these questions:
- Does this material add value or provide new understanding to my readers?
- Would my own comments regarding this topic benefit without this material?
- Am I willing to link back to this source?
This is not elementary and there is more to each of these questions than simply answering them without contemplation.
If the material you want to copy and paste adds new understanding to your topic and provides value for your readership then go ahead and use it, but be sure to give attribution to your source.
If your own comments will stand alone without the material you want to borrow, ask yourself if it is really necessary to borrow. If not, then leave it alone, or paraphrase it. If there is no way your own material can stand alone without borrowing someone else’s material then maybe you should reconsider your own knowledge of the topic. You want your own material to be able to stand on its own. Consider the other person’s work much like graphics on your web site: It is there to enhance, not to be the primary focus.
Thirdly, if you are not willing to link back to your source then don’t bother using the material. Linking back is essential as an act of attribution and if you are not willing to do this then leave it alone.
Allen Taylor is the operations manager for NameCritic, Inc., which includes Article Content Provider, SEO Service Provider, and Blog Content Provider. He writes the News and Media Blog and survived as a newspaper editor in his off line past. He is not an attorney and never has been.
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