SciFiGuy asked about copyright in the general forum at support, and since I can't reply in that forum, I PMed him some information instead, as I find
copyright interesting. But then I thought that maybe we should share this here as it's already a hot topic in another thread.
Hi SciFiGuyCopyright applies to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete and fixed in a medium.Source: WikipediaCopyright is automatically attributed - if you wrote it, you own it. However, that doesn't mean if you write the words "I love you" that you own the copyright for those words. Fair use policy also allows you to copy a proportion of a work , and fair use takes into account these variables:
the purpose and character of the use;the nature of the copyrighted work;the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.Source: WikipediaCourts have previously found that a use was fair where the use of the copyrighted work was socially beneficial. In particular, U.S. courts have recognized the following fair uses: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research and parodies.Here are some other pages that might help you: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html http://www.walthowe.com/pubweb/copyright.html http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090329/2229284297.shtmlSource: EFF
After sending that, I found some other interesting comments by others. This one:
Twitter is "publishing". Media can report published comments, quote them, attribute them, and there you go. Something said in public, be it on twitter or in front of a crowd of people, is the same thing. Public statement is public statement.Source: Techdirt
...struck a chord - if you're reporting news then you're allowed to quote public statments? And what makes a comment a public statement? Does
posting on a public forum constitute "media publishing" ?
Other articles discussing the issue of forums made reference to "assumed" or "implied" privacy. I think it's quite clear that if
a forum is not open to the public then statements made within cannot be construed as public statements.
But where many people get their knickers in a twist on bulletin boards, is assuming that their words are WORTH being protected by copyright law. For
example, Member X states that she's got a new dog. Member Y quotes that statement on a different board. Has she violated copyright law? Was Member
X's comment worthy of protection? I don't believe so.
There is the additional detail to consider - are forum posts a "FIXED" medium? Rarely could that be true, since most bulletin boards allow
editing of posts - either by the author of the post, or by the moderators of the board. Most forums ramble on like a collection of conversations. Since
statements made in a conversation held in the street is not able to be protected by copyright law, how so the digital equivalent? A chatroom is an even
less fixed type of medium.
In some cases, this is where it becomes clear that Member X is NOT annoyed about copyright violations. That's merely the vehicle that she uses to
attack Member Y with. And the reason she wants to attack Y is because really is that X feels her privacy has been violated, and doesn't like the fact
that Y "reported" on her life without her permission. Despite the fact that anyone else could have come and read the statement for themselves.
The easiest way to avoid this problem would be for Y to paraphrase the statement rather than quote it. She could simply say "X says that she got a
new dog". X would still get her knickers in a twist over it, but she wouldn't be able to pretend that it was a copyright violation. And that is
the sordid and petty nature of so many bulletin board communities!
Putting aside the trivial and banal for a moment, many sites offer you the opportunity to violate copyright laws with a single click - anything you post
on a site that offers a "Share" button is surely in danger of being spread about. I searched for a friend on facebook the other day, and
realised that there was a share button on his search listing page, which allowed me to post his avatar to my wall - and it didn't notify him at all
about that. That's an image, rather than text which is what we're discussing here, but the point is if sites are going to give you tools to use
that make copyright violations automated, how can anyone keep tabs on their stuff?
Right now, blogs and tweets and diggs encourage people to share as much as they can around the webosphere. There are blogs that do little more than quote
and comment on other blogs - and in the most part, the blog owners like that because it runs traffic back to them too. Like a little incestuous circle of
blog. After all - what is the point of blogging in isolation? As long as the link and the accreditation are in place, the copyright owner is happy to be
cited.
