Chit - Chat for CruisersOpen Forum for non-cruise posts. Please refrain from inflammatory rhetoric that could be considered offensive. We reserve the right to edit or delete for any reason.
Thanks Mike for posting the Terms of Service. I guess some "issues" forced your hand, resulting in the obvious placement of the guidelines on this forum.
Question: If I quote/post an article found elsewhere (say, per your example, The New York Times) and I duly credit the source, am I still in violation of the TOS (thus causing CM copyright blowback)?
There is a legal concept of copyright called "fair use" which allows you to repost a SMALL PART of a larger work to use as a point of reference within a larger original discussion by you.
It should not be any more than you need to reprint in order to explain what about the article you are responding to, and by rule of thumb it should definitely not be the majority of your post.
You must also give due credit to the original source including who wrote it, who published it, when and where,
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I am the editor, but I also speculate, ask questions and play devil's advocate. I reserve the right to change my mind.
So then, when we wish to call attention to a news piece, we should link to it rather than quoting it?
I didn't know newspapers etc. were so anal about their copy. It is, after all, news (often obtained verbatim from news wire services). Opinions (op/ed and the like) are another matter, in my view.
So then, when we wish to call attention to a news piece, we should link to it rather than quoting it?
Yes, absolutely.
The alternative is to obtain permission from the owner of the copyright before posting the material. If you do so, I strongly recommend documenting the permission in the actual post so that the staff of CruiseMates will be aware that you obtained it.
Most businesses and other institutions give very generous permission to republish their press releases. Again, it's best to include the statement granting permission for republication with the content of the press release in the post so there's no confusion on the part of the staff that might result in accidentally deleting a post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by You
I didn't know newspapers etc. were so anal about their copy. It is, after all, news (often obtained verbatim from news wire services). Opinions (op/ed and the like) are another matter, in my view.
The copyright belongs to the original author of an article, who may assign it to a publisher via a contractual agreement. In the case of wire services, the authors' contracts of employment usually assign the copyright on the articles written pursuant to their employment to the wire services and the wire services then license the copyright to the newspaper. Thus, if an item in your newspaper is attributed to Associated Press (AP), Reuters, or Universal Features Syndicate, it's usually Associated Press, Reuters, or Universal Features Syndicate who holds the actual copyright.
And, in any case, copying a copyrighted work or a substantial portion of a copyrighted work without permission of the copyright holder is a violation of copyright law. The provisions of "fair use" permit you to make one copy of a coprighted work for personal use, but not to publish that work or to distribute it to others. For violation of a copyright, the copyright holder may sue for damages due to the violation and costs incurred to identify the violation and pursue the case, including legal fees and court costs. If the copyright is registered, those damages are automatically tripled.
Now, let me add one more wrinkle to this discussion. The law also distinguishes between "distributors" of information and "publishers" of information. A "distributor" is an organization that gives you the capability to transmit information to another party without monitoring the content of that information, such as a telephone company or an Internet service provider, is legally not liable for the content thereof. The courts have held, however, that a web site that maintains moderated discussion boards, like these boards on CruiseMates, is the publisher of the information posted thereupon, and thus is legally liable for the content thereof. If any of us were to post an article, or a substantial portion of an article, on these boards without documented permission to do so, the copyright holder could hold both the poster and CruiseMates liable for damages caused thereby. The CruiseMates staff must remove posts that violate copyright law, or that appear to violate copyright law, as expeditiously as possible to protect CruiseMates, but we all should be thankful if they remove our posts for that reason because they are also protecting us.
And from a moral perspective, republishing copyrighted material without permission is deplorable because it deprives those who labor to produce it of just income for their labors. Think how you would react if somebody took your work without paying you for it!
Incidentally, these issues are not unique to CruiseMates. Rather, they apply generally to all web sites with message or discussion boards and to social networking sites (YouTube, Facebook, etc.) as well.
Norm.
Last edited by Rev22:17; March 18th, 2010 at 07:27 PM.
Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to disable the copy/paste function when posting? I know it's possible (because I've been to other websites where it has been disabled for this very reason). Folks would be a lot less inclined to plagiarize if they had to type it all in manually.
The flipside is, there would be a lot less "cruise news" here.
Your definition of use by teachers is just ONE of the definitions of fair use - and the only one that allows full re-copying of thr article. There are other definitons of fair use, such as the one I already listed which I think is more germaine to our discussion.
It says one may use a small part of a larger piece of copyrighted work if you use it for purposes of discussion of the topic, as part of a review or critique, for example.
So - if you read an article elsewhere and there is a part of it you wish to critique or discuss here, you can include that small section of that article here - as long as you also give the name of the author and a link to the full article with your inclusion.
This has become the standard definition of fair use of outside copyrighted content for publications - especially message boards.
You may NOT injure the right of the original author to make money from his original publishing of his work by including such a substantail portion of the original article that you preclude the need for a person to seek out the original article in full.
But for example if from a larger article on cruise ship design you include just a portion that discusses one aspect of one ship you want to talk about and you want to critique what the author said - that is OK - as long as you give a link to the entire article and identify where it is from.,
I personally think this is a more fair "fair use" than merely re-writing someone else's piece and not saying who or where the original idea came from.
__________________
I am the editor, but I also speculate, ask questions and play devil's advocate. I reserve the right to change my mind.
Your definition of use by teachers is just ONE of the definitions of fair use - and the only one that allows full re-copying of thr article. There are other definitons of fair use, such as the one I already listed which I think is more germaine to our discussion.
It says one may use a small part of a larger piece of copyrighted work if you use it for purposes of discussion of the topic, as part of a review or critique, for example.
So - if you read an article elsewhere and there is a part of it you wish to critique or discuss here, you can include that small section of that article here - as long as you also give the name of the author and a link to the full article with your inclusion.
This has become the standard definition of fair use of outside copyrighted content for publications - especially message boards.
You may NOT injure the right of the original author to make money from his original publishing of his work by including such a substantail portion of the original article that you preclude the need for a person to seek out the original article in full.
But for example if from a larger article on cruise ship design you include just a portion that discusses one aspect of one ship you want to talk about and you want to critique what the author said - that is OK - as long as you give a link to the entire article and identify where it is from.,
I personally think this is a more fair "fair use" than merely re-writing someone else's piece and not saying who or where the original idea came from.
Yes, I was not trying to be exhaustive. You are absolutely correct as to the quotation of a minor portion of a work, perhaps to entice the reader to read the whole article or in the context of further discussion thereof, falling within the realm of "fair use."
Readers may not be aware of this, but you actually do NOT need a license to use copyrighted computer software, either. It turns out that "fair use" permits making copies when doing so is part of the normal use of the product. Thus, by purchasing a computer program, you obtain the right (1) to "install" (that is, copy) it onto the system disk where it's readily available for use and (2) to execute the program, which necessarily entails making another copy into memory.
And this is a good thing, as courts have generally held that a seller cannot impose contractual terms on a buyer unless there's a negotiation in which the buyer agrees to those terms before the purchase takes place. This means that most "shrink wrap" licenses and other license agreements associated with computer software, which the user does not see until after buying the product, are legally null and void. Even displaying a license agreement and forcing the user to "click" an "I Accept" button, or to otherwise indicate acceptance, in order to proceed with the installation does not make such license agreements legally enforceable, as the user who does so is merely doing what is necessary to exercise the legal right to "fair use" of the software that the user already acquired by virtue of the purchase.
Terms of Service Clarification
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