Is this infringment of copyright?

[rajraj]

I have some content taken from the online books which is related to our website. If I rewrite the content in our own words without altering the meaning of the sentences, can this be terms as a copyright violation? In brief, we will rephrase the whole content by keeping it true meaning and interpretation same as original.

[rajraj]

Ok I am here, well I posted my last post while leaving office and here I am today (saturday)in the office again.

Anyways, all I was asking is that we are into widget services, and this original material which I am referring to, have mentioned all the details (procedure, methods etc) about our services. Now, we too have to mentioned the same procedure and methods which we use in our service. If procedure 'A' follows 'B' & 'B' follows 'C', we too have to mentioned it in the same way, we just cant jump from Procedure 'A' to 'C', just because Original material has mentioned in the same order.

We are providing our services since years hence we are well informed about our work, research etc etc....
While browsing, I just came across this material, which we found was well written and so we decided to use these materials as a guide or reference (whatever u want to call it), thats it.

For a safer side (if that can help), we arent going to put "All right Reserved" at the bottom of the page. We dont think that we are violating copyrighted material, I wanted your inputs about the same. My question was " do u think we are violating the copyright".

[rajraj]

It does seem strange you readily assume and tell us the intent of the original poster (who remains absent)

Outland, today I kept my browser of WW active for more than 4 hours to be remain PRESENT. MAy be you were ABSENT today.

TIME ZONE difference may be :)

Anyways see ya tomorrow. Bye (leaving office)

[stapel]

outland88: "Most judges would kick you out of a courtroom for the name-calling."

He called himself and couple of other posters "laymen". Since when is this "name-calling"? Or do you not know what the word "layman" means...?

outland88: "...an opposing attorney will be calling copyright infringement stealing...."

An attorney may try using whatever informality and imprecision he likes in his attempts to sway opinion in his client's favor. That won't change the legal definitions or the charges at issue, and may actually result in rebuke or censure.

outland88: "There’s a lot more to law than quoting it. Smart people and smart attorneys avoid courtrooms.... No hiding behind a keyboard insulting people."

Then I would respectfully suggest that you never put yourself in the position of needing to enter a courtroom: You would be out of your element.

Eliz.

[larryhatch]

Rajraj: By now you have seen several opinions.

Here is what I believe is the bottom line:

1) Those who claim Google and others copy content are simply trying to justify their own practices.
2) That sort of stuff fools nobody on a list of this quality.
3) Can you get away with plagiarism and/or scraping? YES provided you play by the rules.

Here are the rules:

a) Translate all scraped content, from English to Greek
to Chinese and back.
b) Paraphrase the resulting word salad. Put all this into your own words.
c) Mortgage the house at a low initial rate and buy a house boat or an aeroplane.
e) Avoid creditors using your backyard bomb shelter. Change air filters regularly.

Best wishes - Larry

[Demaestro]

Now that is some quality info.

The fact is that the original question is very context depending.

If his site was a site on Asthma, and he went around looking for articles on Asthma, written by reseachers and or doctors.

Would you condem him for posting relative articles on the advancment of Asthma treatment and new methods and or drugs?

What if the guy running the site is just a parent of a kid who has Asthma and knows nothing about re-wording a researched article full of medical and technical findings? He wouldn't have the technical knownlage to do such a thing without possibly removing essencial information without even knowing.

Would this warrent action? The guy is trying to keep the world educated on a problem that world faces together.

In this context it would be gross to go after this guy with a DMCA? Would you call him a theif? Does his site deserve banishment? NO, no, NO.

Imagine how long it would have taking our society to get to this point if everytime someone came up with a great idea they made sure they and only they could use it. And if they went after anyone else who had to gall to come up with a similar idea, we would still be living in caves, and all the good ideas that could get us out would be hidden in some patent or copyright office.

Knowlage is power and as Dave said knowlage is all of ours. You can't own an idea or a collection of words put in a certain order. I could come up with the same words in the same order without ever hearing your words. Does that make me a theif? No.

[Kufu]

I wonder if now is the time to mention the 'Infinite monkey theorem' ;)

[stapel]

Demaestro said: Would you condem him for posting relative articles on the advancment of Asthma treatment and new methods and or drugs?

If he, without a license, took the work of others, then yes, that would be an infringement.

Demaestro said: What if the guy...knows nothing about re-wording a researched article...?

"Rewording" is creating a "derivative work". This would, I fear, also be an infringement.

Demaestro said: The guy is trying to keep the world educated on a problem that world faces together.

Please clarify: Are you saying that it's acceptable to infringe upon the rights of others, as long as you "care enough"...? So it would be okay for me to steal your car, as long as I used it to take warm meals to shut-ins...?

And are you saying that the original creators of the content didn't care? And if not, why then did they go to the effort of researching and publishing?

If your "caring" hero only wishes to share the information, why can't he post a review of and a link to the original creation? Why does "caring" require the infringement of the rights of others?

Demaestro said: Imagine how long it would have taking our society to get to this point if everytime someone came up with a great idea they made sure they and only they could use it.

If an advocate of copyrights said that copyrights prevent anybody from "using" the "ideas" contained in copyrighted content, I've missed it. In any case, copyrights do not apply to "ideas", and I don't believe any of the informed posters to this thread have said that they do.

Eliz.

[edited by: tedster at 2:56 am (utc) on Mar. 26, 2006]