copyrighted material

Quote: nyuhoosier

The newspaper has paid the salaries of the reporter and his editors and set up the newsroom infrastructure that supports their work. Copying and pasting an entire article might not seem like stealing, but in a way it is. If you link to the article instead, you're rewarding their honest work and removing any gray area regarding copyrights.

I understand what you're saying, and I don't necessarily disagree. The newspaper world has become big business, which is partly why the reporting isn't always fair and unbiased. But the same principle applies to magazines or online-zines, or any other number of information producing sources.

I understand that the newspaper, or whoever, has some desire to recoup the cost, through advertising, of producing the article. I guess I just feel like it's a step too far to call it "copyright infringement". When the article is properly cited, nobody has infringed on a copyright. However, I know that there probably isn't any other kind of lawsuit that can be brought up, but maybe something a bit more in line is required.

Quote: konceptum

I guess I just feel like it's a step too far to call it "copyright infringement". When the article is properly cited, nobody has infringed on a copyright. However, I know that there probably isn't any other kind of lawsuit that can be brought up, but maybe something a bit more in line is required.

The copyright holder owns the material in question. You can't just post it elsewhere without his permission. Therefore doing so is copyright infringement.

Suppose you took your neighbor's car for a spin and then returned it. That still constitutes car theft, because you took the car without the owner's permission.

Quote: konceptum

... When the article is properly cited, nobody has infringed on a copyright. ...

Well, I'm certainly not an intellectual property attorney, but I don't think citing the source of something means that you haven't infringed the copyright. An extreme example would be this: Pick up a copy of the current best-selling novel. Make a bunch of copies and start selling them at 85% of the usual price of the book. Be sure to add on your title page a citation for the original author and publisher -- give them full credit for the work.

Think that would work out OK for you?

Quote: Doc

Well, I'm certainly not an intellectual property attorney, but I don't think citing the source of something means that you haven't infringed the copyright. An extreme example would be this: Pick up a copy of the current best-selling novel. Make a bunch of copies and start selling them at 85% of the usual price of the book. Be sure to add on your title page a citation for the original author and publisher -- give them full credit for the work.

Think that would work out OK for you?

Since when is common sense applicable in things legally related, like intellectual property, etc.?

Quote: Doc

An extreme example would be this: Pick up a copy of the current best-selling novel. Make a bunch of copies and start selling them at 85% of the usual price of the book. Be sure to add on your title page a citation for the original author and publisher -- give them full credit for the work.

Isn't this what Amazon does with the Kindle? Or what Google is trying to do with electronicizing (?) every document in the world?

Seriously though, you're right. And I understand. I am thinking of two entities involved in the publication of the material in question: the entity who wrote it/did the research, and the entity who publishes the material. Obviously, the entity who publishes the material needs to recoup the cost of publishing the material, and having some other person just blatantly publish the same material infringes on their copyright.

I feel that the entity who wrote and/or did the research has a different vested interest. While they may be paid royalties in certain circumstances, in others, they may have just been paid a flat fee (newspaper/magazine columnist). However, even so, they would not like to see their materials being credited to someone else.

For a number of years, I tried stand-up comedy. From that point of view, I can tell you that there is nothing worse than hearing someone else tell a joke you wrote. Sometimes, people don't realize the amount of effort that went into writing a joke, perfecting the timing, getting the wording just right, etc, etc. Then to have someone else just come along and steal it, and tell it themselves, well, it's theft, as you and other stated.

So, again, I do understand. I just feel that the two different entities have two different reasons for being upset if the material is shown on another website. I guess I feel that the person having wrote the article has LESS of a reason to be upset, if his name appears on the work. However, the publisher is still losing out on advertising revenue coming from the ads placed on his website.

I guess I just think that a happy medium could be reached. Such as quoting the article, in full, with proper credit, and a link to the original website of the article. I know that will never happen, but I'm always looking for happy mediums. :)

Quote: konceptum

Isn't this what Amazon does with the Kindle? Or what Google is trying to do with electronicizing (?) every document in the world?

No, I'm quite confident that Amazon's eBooks for the Kindle (or Barnes and Noble's eBooks for nook and all the other similar products) involve paying the copyright owner for use of their works. Except in the case of those works where the copyright has expired. These eBooks are published and royalties paid in a manner fairly similar to the paper and ink versions.

Now Google is another story. I have not studied the issue, but I think there may be some valid claims against them. The idea that "once a document exists, everyone should have access to it" just doesn't fly very far in my opinion, particularly if the author is not being compensated properly. That's just exploitation/theft of someone else's work.

The websites being sued are Major Wager , Citizens for responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and Matt Farnham a local real estate agent.

I don't know if the websites have changed in anyway as a result of the lawsuits, but mostly they look like series of links.

Farnham said that until he was contacted by the Sun on Friday, he was unaware there was a concern with his posting Review-Journal stories. Farnham said he had felt that posting such stories, while crediting the source, was appropriate and that he didn't intend to plagiarize any information.

This article from the LA Times discusses the lawsuits in a wry tone.

The lawsuits now number 26 (for $75K apiece). See the article in the Las Vegas Sun .Copyright Las Vegas Sun, 2010, All Rights Reserved. So the lawsuits now total $2 million.

Quote: Steve Green

Righthaven has partnered with the Review-Journal to sue and seek damages from parties allegedly infringing on copyrights. Righthaven acquires copyrights for specific R-J stories and sues websites that have posted those stories.

These issues are going to pick up steam, because Murdoch and a few others are trying to put the genie back in the bottle. In the early days, when eyeballs were considered the metric, newspapers and other content providers (except notably the Wall Street Journal) put their stuff online for free with the expectation that advertising revenue would pay their way. Now that it's painfully obvious that that didn't pan out, not only are they getting more aggressive in protecting their content; there's a slight move to try to erect pay walls. It remains to be seen how that plays out.

I believe Murdoch or someone sued Google saying you can't quote the lead from our story on your News pages, even if you're linking to us and you don;t have any advertising on that page. Don't remember if that got settled yet.

I think there was a case in Europe when linking itself was held to be a violation.

There's a ton of fuzziness in fair use; you can read different decisions on it where the cases were similar but the judgments were different. It's best to be conservative because you may be able to make a good case on paper that you're right, but you can't afford to pay to make it in court.