Quoting Copyrighted Articles and Text

Quoting Copyrighted Articles and Text

PostBy: Richard S. On: Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:44 pm

Quoting copyrighted articles in there entirety is a violation of copyright law, nearly everything you read is copyrighted. The law for something to be copyrighted simply states as soon as you create an original work it's automatically copyrighted and this copyright goes well beyond a century. For example this post is copyrighted by me the author as it's an original document. To copy an entire original work you need the permission of the owner. However there are some exceptions and provisions in copyright law that allow you to use snippets of an article legally, this is referred to as fair use.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107
§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. 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.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.



This is an interpretable law but in general it allows you to use small portions of text from copyrighted material if for example you wanted to post it here. If you're going to do this only use a few sentences, quote the text and provide a link to the whole article.

In this example I'll be using a page from my own site but lets pretend its from somewhere else. If for example our discussion was regarding capturing VHS video and the effects of false macrovision protection we may want to quote this:


This would be acceptable:
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http://www.nepadigital.com/mv/
What is Macrovision Protection

Macrovision was first used on VHS tapes in 1984 to copy protect video on VHS tapes, it is simply a video error inserted into the video stream of most commercial VHS tapes. This does not affect how it looks when viewing it on a TV, TV's are very forgiving of this error. Note that there are some exceptions, this did affect some older TV's when first introduced. What it will affect is attempts to copy a commercial VHS tape from one VCR to another. This manifests as video that jumps frames, video flashing from bright to dark such as the strobing affect I described above. Some of these symptoms very closely resemble a tracking problem. They can however vary widely especially with capture devices, some may simply put up screen stating the video is copyright protected.


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My choice of article is ironic isn't it? 8-) I've only quoted a relatively small part of the entire article. If for example you were quoting a news article you'd want to follow the same format. Quote the first paragraph or relevant text elsewhere in the article and provide a link to full article.
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Re: Quoting Copyrighted Articles and Text

PostBy: Richard S. On: Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:30 pm

Take note this also applies to manuals provided by the manufacturers, I'll be seeking permission from these companies to redistribute them.
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Re: Quoting Copyrighted Articles and Text

PostBy: WNY On: Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:18 am

We run into this all the time, I work in our Standards/Specs / ISO department, people wanting copies of Different National Codes, Specifications, etc. We have an agreement with a company on line, but you can only use it for 30 days and have to destroy it after that, you can always re-download it. It's all printed with the date, your username, company, etc...You cannot copy it or distribute it either. This stuff is pretty serious... Our group of 5 people maintain over 14,000 documents for our company....keep us busy. :)
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Re: Quoting Copyrighted Articles and Text

PostBy: Richard S. On: Mon Mar 03, 2008 2:02 am

traderfjp wrote:I know Riachrd is concerned with copyrighted material but this comes from a government agency (MSHA) which is owned by the people of this country. Enjoy.


This was posted by traderfjp in another post so I'll address it here.

Nearly any document, image, video or text generated by the government is in the public domain so you can freely copy them. However there are a few exceptions where a third party has interest as well and copyright comes into play. Off the top of my head some of the images from the Hubble telescope I know are copyrighted and/or have restrictions in their use.

If it's a government website and and some of the content has restrictions you should find a copyright notice on it.

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While on the topic of notices it should be noted just because an image, video or text does not have a copyright notice on it doesn't mean it is not copyrighted. Actually everything produced by an individual that is original is copyrighted automatically.
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Re: Quoting Copyrighted Articles and Text

PostBy: Yanche On: Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:41 am

Suppose I take a high resolution picture of a person reading a one page copyrighted article. I get the the persons permission to publish it. Now I post it on the net. Let's assume the resolution of the photo is sufficient to read the article. Is there a copyright violation?
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Re: Quoting Copyrighted Articles and Text

PostBy: Richard S. On: Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:57 am

Good question and I really don't know for sure, if you took an image that was good enough to read the text there is good chance you were purposely trying to copy the text .. yes/no?

Having said that it might fall under what is an incidental clause, I don't have the specific section to point too but this has come up in the video forum that I frequent. From my understanding if for example you're taping something and there is a radio playing a copyrighted song in the background you're not breaking copyright. I'd imagine anyhting like this is taken on case by case basis and there is not exact line drawn. It would be up to a judge or jury if a suit was filed against you.

I'm not lawyer but that's my understanding.
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