Summarizing Another Article

Do I Own The Copyright and Is It OK?

[dbar]

If I find an article that has 2000 words and I summarize it to 500 words, do I own the copyright and is this ok? Do I need to list the source to publish it on a website?

[larryhatch]

I would say cut that to 200 words (10%), completely paraphrased rather than snipped
quotes, and yes definitely credit the source with an honest href= link. -Larry

[larryhatch]

A slight amendment to my post above. _Short_ quotations are OK,
no need to paraphrase absolutely everything.
If you contact the author/originator of the article, maybe he/she will
give permission for the entire article in return for a link back. - Larry

[dbar]

Thanks Larry, I don't really want the entire article, I want it "summarized" so it's easier to quickly understand without reading all the details. Linking to it's no problem and I've done similar before, I was justing wanting to understand the copyright issues of doing this.

It will mostly be paraphrased with some factual data word for word.

I guess I'm mostly looking for answers to 1) Are there legal issues with this procedure, 2) Since it will be paraphrased, do I now own the copyright to the new summarized article?

[HughMungus]

I'm no lawyer, but, newspapers do this all the time. "According to an article on the New York Times, blah blah blah". I'd guess it was legal (whereas those saying you can legally copy any part of the article are dead wrong).