Forum Moderators: not2easy
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blue_eagle said: I've searched a lot but can't find detailed information about this. Every site I go to says you can't copy my content, etc. etc. But is there a law aganist this.
You've "searched a lot" but can't find any information anywhere about copyrights [google.com], plagiarism [google.com], or other related aspects of this topic? Even in the "library [webmasterworld.com]" for this very forum? Really?
Eliz.
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.....but will take a lot of time. And it is easy for me to use this site as a resource.
The content does not belong to you. Too bad that it will take a lot of time. Probably took them a lot of time too - and investment.
Always easier to take work than to do the work.
If you are making a reference, using some modest quotes, giving attributions and links to the 'resource' - that is one thing, and they would probably be happy to come to an arrangement. Just 'mining the resource' to use as your own content is something else.
I think that you already know the right and wrong here. Which way will you go?
Then there is the practice of aggregating similar content from numerous sources and creating new content, that is, a fresh way of presenting what everybody else offers. Also a lot of work, but worthwhile. I differentiate this from direct mining, because the intent is to take a bit of everything that is out there and improve it, expand it, weed out the scrap, and tailor it for what your website needs.
You NEED to take the time to do that, and not look for simple answers to issues that are actually more complex than you realize.
Basic principle of copyright law is that it protects all unique expressions of ideas, information, etc. Facts themselves can't be protected, though.
As you correctly suspect, a list of companies, like the information in a phone directory, is just information. However, though you can probably safely copy the names, you can't assume that you can copy descriptions or other text.
There's a line you can't cross, and rather than give us a general description of what you want to do and expect us to tell you if it's OK or not, you'll be much better off if you learn about the legal principles involved and make your own decision. After all, opinions offered here could be wrong.
Period. That means even if the entries were added by the listed companies. Copyright infringement may lead to getting booted from your host, and removed from the search engine's index. Don't do it.
But I wonder one thing, if such reaction is called scrapping the content, then Google is the biggest scrapper, scrapping miilions of sites, caching them (where they keep people's content) then make it available publicly and displaying ads and making billions $ every month.
?
The listings in a directory are protected by the DMCA, period. Is that clear enough for you? ;)
LOL. No lawyer me, so I'll conceded that point - but not very effectively protected in my experience.
And I've got to grant blue_eagle's point on scraping. The differences between theft and utilizing content as resource material run from obvious black-and-white scenarios and merge into the full grey-area murkiness. Just part of the game; a game that has some rules yet to be written, others yet to be enforced, others unenforcible even if justifiable..... It will never end. The rules of the game will always be changing, open to interpretation - and even if you play it white-hat all the way there is no assurance that somebody won't have moved the goal posts:))
That's a different discussion altogether. You might want to ask the question over in the Google Search Forum. Those issues have been discussed before many times and have been through the courts already, with Google winning in the United States and less successfully in Europe wrt news snippets displayed on Google News.
After all it comes to a point whose lawyer is strong. Google is making money using everyone's site without permission of anyone and keeping the whole content in their big databases. If they win doing this, then it comes to a point whose lawyer is stronger. And if there is a way to win in the coutr using other people's content, that means it is not really protected.
Thanks for the replies.
Cheers..
No offense, but that is kind of a naive statement, as in that opinion can only be explained through a lack of information and/or experience in courts. I'm not a lawyer but I've been involved in small claims actions on appeal and have gone up against attornies and kicked their pants, several times.
>>>that means it is not really protected.
Not true either. I and many others here have blown websites offline and out of the search engine indexes through the power of the DMCA.
Again. You are changing the topic of the discussion. I encourage you to post a new discussion if you want to explore why Google can display a cache and rank sites etc.
After all it comes to a point whose lawyer is strong. Google is making money using everyone's site without permission of anyone and keeping the whole content in their big databases. If they win doing this, then it comes to a point whose lawyer is stronger. And if there is a way to win in the coutr using other people's content, that means it is not really protected.
I think you wanted approval of what you wanted to do and were annoyed you didn't get it. Just do the work yourself...do you really want to worry everyday about when the day's going to come when you get in trouble for stealing content. Is some extra time saved really worth the risk?
No one here is going to agree with stealing content; especially because many people have had their quality content taken. And most of them have and will go after the thief. Don't take the risk.
Intellectual property for the Internet - Lewis C. Lee & J. Scott Davidson.
Start reading from page 81.
Syzygy
Copying Company info from a site
All the comments above are good, but back to the OP... If by company info you mean CoName, CoAddress, CoPhone and NOTHING ELSE (an address directory) and NOT THE DISPLAY CODE TOO, and that info is also freely available on the net from other sources, or available in print or public advertising... no problems.
Then again, company lists created by YOU will be more accurate and specific...why TRUST someone else's work? Copy an error and you get the error!
Do the work yourself. You'll get better results!
"Freely available" is a common excuse copyright infringers use. Tangor, the list itself is a copyrightable work. Lists are content.
Tangor, if I go to YOUR website and take your content but not the display code, and the words used on your site are "freely available" on an internet dictionary, does that sound right to you?
Lists are content.
I have been following this thread with more interest than usual for this subject.
What distinguishes 'facts' which can be used from 'lists' which are protected? Perhaps I would benefit from a clearer understanding of the differentiation.
It is always been my understanding (possibly misguided) that 'presentation' is a key part of infringement.
For example, the 'facts' of a recipe would be freely available, but using someone's text or presentation would be crossing the line.
Where is the line with a 'list'? How is a list item different from a fact?
Using five different lists as sources, and compiling a new one, is another, isn't it?
My understanding is that the OP can pull individual facts from various sources, but legally can ethically copying someone's work is not a good idea.
D_Blackwell asked: How is a list item different from a fact?
For instance, the fact relating the area of a circle to the radius of that circle, "A = (pi)(r^2)", is not copyrightable. But a geometry textbook is. The geometrical facts are not what is being copyrights; the presentation of those facts is.
Naturally, a textbook is quite a bit more involved than a mere listing of names and addresses. At some point between "textbook" and "vendor registry", I'm sure we would reach legal "gray" areas that could generate massive incomes for the lawyers. But I think one can see at least the basic idea.
One possible on-point comparison might be with Bibles. The 1611 version is not under copyright; anybody can print it out. But most Bibles have copyright notices in them. Why?
The publishers are copyrighting their presentation: the footnotes, the headers, the cross-referencing, etc. You can't just rip their cover off, glue your cover on, and present the result as being your product. If you want to print Bibles, you have to typeset everything yourself, using your own presentation and "extras".
Similarly, you (likely) can't scrape another site's directory, rip off their "cover", "glue on" yours, and present the result as being your product.
Eliz.
In U.S. courts, when there is a disagreement between two people and if it is not specific, they go back to situations where smilar thing happened and they take that as a reference. In here, I showed Google as a smilar reference, although most people showed reaction to me.
Cheers..
A list of company names and addresses taken from a directory is not an original content it is a list. It is not created by someone, it is an information.
That's like saying a painting by an artist isn't original, it is just a collection of paint.
FarmBoy
To make it easier for you, here's a link:
Intellectual Property for the Internet (pp82) [books.google.co.uk]
You might find it more useful to read from the start of the specific chapter.
Syzygy
Tangor, the list itself is a copyrightable work. Lists are content.
martinibuster...
are you a lawyer? I have forgotten more copyright law than most yahoos know.
Compnay names, addresses and phone numbers (DIRECTORY LISTINGS) are not copyrightable. Check WEST LAW.
Get back to me after your education.
Tangor, if I go to YOUR website and take your content but not the display code, and the words used on your site are "freely available" on an internet dictionary, does that sound right to you?
Why you are picking on me I don't know... but the words on my web site are not a directory listing, and content falls into an entirely different category of IP law. :)
Copyright Protection of Databases in the United States [copyright.gov].
It's a 112 page document, which suggests that "the answer" may not be as simple as some might suggest or believe.
See Section C1 for a discussion of the copyrightability of the Yellow Pages.
FarmBoy
So, there are now three links to external sources - all of which provide answers to the questions posed.
You did click on them, didn't you? :-)
Syzygy
