Copyright question

[Junanagoh]

Just want to know if it is legal to quote the New York Times best sellers list. If I put a link up to the original page, give them credit, etc. Or is this concidered stealing? Just wanted to make sure before I did it.

[Syzygy]

Just want to know if it is legal to quote the New York Times best sellers list.

One may 'quote' under the broad guise of Fair Use [fairuse.stanford.edu]...

You need to familiarise yourself with the basics... do have a look - it's an incredible resource.

Syzygy

[dimensioni]

You can use the quoted info as long as you give credit to the source of the infiormation.

Else it amounts to copying and can put you in trouble

[graeme_p]

It also depends how much you want to quote.

[Junanagoh]

I want to show the top 15 new york times best sellers novels for fiction.

Do I have to ask them first for that or just give them credit and link the their page?

[hunderdown]

I think you most likely will need to ask first. That's reproducing a large chunk of the list, and the most important part of it.

Think about it this way--would reproducing 2/3 of an entire NYT news article without permission be OK, even with credit and link?

[vincevincevince]

As I understand it, it may depend upon context. If you are comparing best-seller lists from 10 sources in a critical analysis of the socio-economic background of their readership, then I would imagine that quoting their list would be acceptable. I think that showing their list in a box on the right of an amazon affiliate site under the title 'Best-sellers' and a link at the bottom saying 'Source: <link>' would not be acceptable.

[Junanagoh]

All right everyone, thanks for the info.

So how would I go about putting a fiction best sellers list on my site then without infringing on copyrights?

[hunderdown]

--get permission to use an existing one. That may not be hard to do.

--create your own.

--join an affiliate program like Amazon's and use theirs.

[lcampers]

from the amount of plagiarized copy on the internet, including illegal song lyrics sites, scraped content, and just blatent copying of entire passages it would seem that there are no copyright infringements

[hunderdown]

You see the infringed content. What you're not seeing is the infringed content that's already been taken down, the money the infringers have paid out, etc.

Sure, if you have a small personal site and post song lyrics, you may get away with it indefinitely. But if you are trying to build a site that will last, that will earn you money, that will develop a reputation, you don't want to risk being shut down for a copyright violation.

[Junanagoh]

Yah thats something I dont want. This is mostly a forum community and thats what I want it to turn into. I dont want something I am working hard on to be messed up from a silly little mistake.

What I am confused about is how do THEY get their best seller lists? Also I am an affiliate of amazon.com they have a list available?

[engine]

What I am confused about is how do THEY get their best seller lists?

Probably through investing in research. You should ask them.

Most websites publish some form of terms of use. Read them carefully.

Certainly, there is no borderline with using other material without permission. It shouldn't be done, it is theft.

Note: I'll draw your attention to our charter. [webmasterworld.com]

Disclaimer:

The comments are strictly the personal opinions of individual members. As always, if you have serious questions regarding your copyright rights, appropriate counsel should be consulted. The comments of WebmasterWorld members, moderators, and administrators are not legal advice; such advice should be sought only from a qualified legal professional in your jurisdiction who can review your facts and circumstances in detail.

[Junanagoh]

Thanks engine :)

[vincevincevince]

What I am confused about is how do THEY get their best seller lists?

There are three places such lists can come from (best-seller lists are lists of the best-selling books), in order of increasing accuracy:
1 - Publisher shipping data
2 - Wholesaler sales data
3 - Retailer sales data

Amazon are a retailer (#3) and hence their lists are almost certainly based upon their own sales.

Perhaps you can start calling bookstores and asking? If you focus upon independant bookstores, your data may be a lot more useful / convincing than those from chain stores or single retailers - it may even be something others would pay you for!

[Beagle]

I'm not completely sure of this, but IIRC if you're an amazon associate you'd use the "link to any page" type of link to show the best-seller list. There should be instructions on the site.

If you want to take another minute or two to make more money, see what amazon's best-sellers are, then make separate direct-to-product links to each book. You'll get the direct selling bonus if someone buys one of those books. Linking to amazon's list would give a more current list, of course, unless you spend all your time making links ;-)

[Junanagoh]

Yah, I think I am just going to put up a new list each week based on amazon's list. After a couple of days it wont be very accurate anymore since they update their list every hour or so. I am just going to write reviews on all of the constant best sellers and then link to amazon :)

Thanks for all your info guys. This is my first site and I couldnt have (and wouldnt have) done it without all the support (and answers to all of my noob questions) of the ww community.

[hunderdown]

BTW, if you want to mention in a review that a book is or was a "New York Times bestseller," there's no reason why you couldn't.

[Junanagoh]

Well that I have done, like I mentioned that Da Vinci Code has been on the list for 141 weeks so far.... lol

[LifeinAsia]

Those ARE copyright infringements, the owners just haven't acted upon them. Or the plagiarists haven't complied with removing them.

[Junanagoh]

what are you refering to?