Researching and writing content on same topics

[Fiky]

Lets say for example my site is offering advice on essay writing.

Will I be causing any copyright problems if I search the internet for the same topic and then take notes from a site then using those notes to create my own article on how to write an essay but obiously in my own words following their kinda structure...

would i be in the brown?

thanks

[shigamoto]

I see what you mean. Well technically you are in the clear if you do not copy the articles layout and/or text. Try to change the structure, just to avoid any problems that it might cause.

Lots of journalist and other writers do this, checking material from other sources for inspiration. It's part of the research process, but as you mentioned write with your own words and try to find multiple sources to strenghten the backbone of your article.

[MichaelBluejay]

Hi, and welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Speaking as a non-lawyer.... Writing is copyrightable, ideas are not. So as long as it's your own writing, substantially changed from the original, then you're fine.

I think the only people who have problems are the ones who do *blatant* thievery -- and even then many of them get away with it, because the victims either don't know they've been robbed or they don't have the resources to fight it. I've discovered lots of people who have stolen my content over the years but if I actually *looked* for people stealing my content, I could probably make a full-time job of that effort. When I *have* found people stealing my content I've always just insisted they remove the stolen content, and almost without exception they've done so. So I've never had to sue anyone, since they complied, which is fine with me, because I have better things to do than to wage legal battles.

So what I'm saying is, you're worrying about this too much. Even *if* what you did violated copyright law (which I don't believe is the case), what exactly are you afraid of? Getting a cease & desist letter, at which point you could just change your articles some more?

Please don't anyone misread this to think that I'm suggesting that people steal articles because it's easy to get away with. Thieves are scum and should be prosecuted. I just don't think that Fiky is a thief, from what (s)he described.

Of course, it's easy enough to do a Google search on copyrights, so it would probably be a good idea to do so (rather than just relying on advice from random strangers in some forum). :)

[Fiky]

Thank you shigamoto :)

MichaelBluejay thanks for taking the time to write that useful reply btw I'm a he :P. All the articles I research will be entirely in my words and different structure so looks like I should be find Michael :)