Please Help Me - Am I Violating Copyright Acts?

[seo_gyan]

Hello friends

i have a query realted to online marketing process pls guide me

i have a website on pharmacy website, where i as a author addarticles are added.

Now these article are taken from someother websites not as a whole article but Title of news,intro text of the news and URL of the news and if some clicks on those artcile he/she is directed to that website from where article has been taken

now my query is. Is this called voilating copywriting acts.pls guide me

[vincevincevince]

You are certainly violating copyright law unless those source website have given you permission for this use.

[seo_gyan]

Thanks for the reply

But pls clarify me on this too....

as Google News are also coming from different websites.with same scenario title , small description and ahead to it page goes to main news website..so have they taken some permissions from that source news website...or somwthing else? pls clarify

Regards
SEO-Gyan

[jtara]

Google has better lawyers than you, and the deep pockets to pay them.

As well, in some cases, yes they do have agreements in place with news providers giving them permission. That's because they lost court cases in some countries.

Google is intentionally pushing the envelope, and testing the law. Can you afford to do that?

[ergophobe]

Vince, I'm a stickler for copyright, but he may be covered under fair use depending on the source and the context.

Many factors but
- he writes articles and has some feeds at the bottom: Other News. I would say that's fine for sure. Even recommended.

- he has scraper pages that say: News from Around the Web and he has short excerpts (100 words) that link through to the original site. I think that's probably still legit. Again, the Google example. Is it a high-quality page for SERPs? No. Is it legal? I would think that if Google is, this is.

- long excerpts - uh oh.

[ibQuixote]

Google isnt the only one doing it. Digg and all those other social networking sites are doing it. Or at least having their users put the same information on the their sites.

[Herbal]

As Ergophobe alludes to, use for the purpose of reporting news is an exempt use of Copyright material.

"Fair use" is different to reporting news.

I know quite a bit about Copyright. You have asked an interesting question. I would say that links themselves are NOT Copyright material. A link is no different to a name or address, niether of which are Copyright. However, they might be Trade Marks and subject to various Trade Laws.

I hope that is of help.

[amelvin]

It's all a matter of degree, links are usually OK; excerpts less so and long excerpts probably not.

If you are asking the question you probably know this though!

The only safe thing is to ask for permission for everything - anything else is legally challengeable.

[mork29]

As long as it is just a small portion of the article, fair use should protect you. However, there is a more important issue. If somebody sued you, do you have the money to hire a lawyer? Can you take the time of work to go to court? It sucks that our system is that way, but there really isn't a better way.

[stapel]

If the "quotes" really are nothing more than a title, a partial sentence, and a URL (such as one finds in search engine "hits"), then the "use" being made would likely be acceptable.

But the original poster referred to his use as being "articles", which suggests something much lengthier and likely un-Fair (Use).

Eliz.

[farmboy]

...not as a whole article but Title of news,intro text of the news and URL of the news and if some clicks on those artcile he/she is directed to that website from where article has been taken

Taking a brief excerpt and linking to the original source seems to be almost exactly as described as Fair Use on the U.S. Copyright website.

I'm not an attorney but it sounds fine to me. I have no mercy for copyright thieves but if you took a brief excerpt from my site and provided a working link, I certainly wouldn't have any problem with that.

FarmBoy

[bakedbeans12]

Yup you can use a certain amount and claim fair use... Typically speaking as my lawyer says, it all boils down to damages...

You won't really get in trouble or sued unless the true owner can show how you posting that information has impacted them financially.

I think the most you can use under fair use is something like 10% of the whole article.

[seo_gyan]

Hello All

Thanks alot for all your replies.

Regards
SEO_Gyan

[yesmedicine]

The only safe thing is to ask for permission for everything - anything else is legally challengeable.
Google is intentionally pushing the envelope, and testing the law. Can you afford to do that?

[koen]

There's one person (a "problogger") who has (at least) one such site. Basically all he does is taking reviews from other sites. The format is this:

-title
-intro sentence (variations of "website A has reviewed -product Foo and this was their conclusion":)
-copied paragraph of the original article with conclusion
-outro sentence (variations on "read more here")

[mini]

I agree with farmboy. As long as you are extracting a small part of content and using it along with a link to that site, it would do good to the other party, in my opinion.

However you should check the laws. If anyone can sue you for such a small part of the content despite your linking back, then you are better off doing that.

[Sylver]

The main point is whether or not the content you copy constitute the main attraction of your page.

If it is, you are most certainly *not* within the limits of fair use.

[rfung]

This is exactly my question - I created a 'search engine' much like Google (and SimplyHired for jobs) - i.e. I aggregate my particular bit of articles from across about 20 sites. In order to index them, I had to spider them - the results is that I only list a title and two lines or text from the beginning. In order for users to read the rest, they have to click on the link (again, exactly like the two above mentioned sites/even looks like it). I was curious if this was legal or gray-legal, and it seems to fall in the light-gray-legal.

What I found out was that what SimplyHired did (by listing content from hundreds of job boards), those job boards were glad (and fighting for positioning) in SimplyHired. Rather than seeing the aggregator as a stealer of content, they were glad they were receiving traffic from them.

In any case, my brother is a business lawyer :)

[farmboy]

[copyright.gov...]

The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material. The Copyright Office cannot give this permission.

When it is impracticable to obtain permission, use of copyrighted material should be avoided unless the doctrine of “fair use” would clearly apply to the situation.

1. Seek permission of the owner. If you can't get a response from the owner, make sure you have documentation to prove your attempts to contact the owner and then use the material only if your use falls under the Fair Use doctrine.

2. If for some reason you don't want to contact the owner to ask for permission, don't use the material.

3. Don't rely on explanations of Fair Use you read on message forums - including what I'm writing here. Read the document at the link above. If you can't understand it, consult an attorney familiar with copyright law. If you still don't understand, don't use any material from someone else.