Copyrights (again)

Submitted by fyl on 22 June, 2008 - 21:43.

The copyright debate is back asking a lot of questions. First, as I stated many times, read Copyright in the Member Guide. I just re-read it and I don't see any holes in what is stated.

One question just asked was "is a copyright still in force if the publication that owns the copyright went out of business. While I am not a copyright lawyer, my guess is yes for the following reasons.

  • Sometimes an author retains the copyright so a publication going away would not matter.
  • Most publications buy limited rights (such as first serial rights). Thus, any other use, even if a magazine owned these rights would have to be granted by the author.
  • If a publication "died", that doesn't necessarily mean there is no legal entity to own the copyright. There could be a company that owned the publication or the material and rights owned by the publication could be descributed as part of a bankruptcy settlement.
  • As a copyright owned by an author does not go away with their death, it seems unlikely it would with a magazine.

"Fair use" is still a big debate. Let me clarify what should be the black and white parts. In between requires judgement.

  • Short quotes (500 words is commonly offered as "ok") in a review and such is almost always accepted. I saw almost always as some books specifically state that "no part" may be quoted. Without that statement, I think it unlikely such a use would ever be considered a copyright violation.
  • Educational use is generally accepted. Some might say they could reprint all of a work for educational use. I don't want to try to justify such a situation here.
  • What does make sense (to me) for educational use is to quote what one or more sources say about an event or situation and use that as a basis for a discussion.
  • Out and out unexplained and uncredited theft (an entire article with no credit whatsoever) is clearly a copyright violation.
  • Generally, using a photo or such as if it was your own (a copy or linking to the original source) is a copyright violation.

Why do I care? Because this web site is owned by a business and it is responsible for the content. We don't have a legal budget (or, really, any budget) to deal with these issues. So, I will generally err on the side of being conservative about use of material under copyright. I will generally post a comment about the issue or contact the author asking them to fix the problem. If I see the issue as urgent (publishing something from a source that is only available for a substantial fee, for example) I will delete the content.

Now, I really have other things to do with the site so what I try to do is encourage authors here to be responsible.

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Educational use

Submitted by mjt on 23 June, 2008 - 23:48.

"Educational use" is just a popular phrase used to describe one of the 4 tenets of "Fair use" (limitations on exclusive rights per copyright). In itself, it doesn't entitle one to any added fair-use uses nor does it automatically increase the limits of them. The 500-word number is also tied to the length of the original document. For example, using 500 words from a 50,000 word document is quite different from using 500 words from a 1000-word document. If the person in question is not an educator, then claiming educational use can itself quickly become problematic (though there are other related defenses). For the vast majority of posts on Nicaliving there is no reason nor benefit to testing the limits of "fair use". In nearly every case, an appropriate subject line, relevant quotation or summary of it, mention of author/source, and if possible link to the "real thing" is all that is necessary. If there is no public link then that is something to ponder, per copyright.