Copyrighted Material

[EllisDee]

Still pretty new here. I’ve been noticing lately that there is a sensitivity to copyrighted material being reproduced on these boards. In this thread I reproduced some passages from a book. I am now wondering if it was too much. How close was I to going over the line, so that I can avoid problems in the future?

[Ice_Wolf]

From the Guideline for Posting FAQs thread at the top of this forum:

copyright issues
At the Straight Dope Message Board, being a message board based on a series of books and newspaper columns, we encourage the respect of copyright law. The rules of the Straight Dope Message Board are enforced by volunteer moderators who are not all legal experts in these matters. So we offer a set of guidelines that may be more conservative or stringent than the law in your jurisdiction, but that we think may help avoid the copyright violation issue. In this as in many other matters we depend not only on moderator enforcement, but also ask for the cooperation and goodwill of our posters.

Suggested guidelines:

If you are going to quote something from an article, quote less than 5% of the source. Include a link to the article if the article is available online.

Only quote directly in very rare circumstances. Instead of repeating a source word-for-word, read the article, attempt to understand it, and rephrase what it says in your own words. Again, include a link to the source if the source is available online. Otherwise indicate a reference to the source (e.g. Science News, issue x, pages yy-zz).

[EllisDee]

I read that…it didn’t/doesn’t appear to answer my question, as I quoted a book, not an article. Obviously, 5% of the 200 page book wouldn’t be kosher.

Oh well, I’ll just assume it was fine but try not to do it anymore.

Yeesh.

[XJETGIRLX]

I don’t know what the exact legal guidlines are, but some of the other places I frequent online have a limit of 200 characters for reproducing or quoting copyrighted sources. In the context of these sites, this deals mainly with online news articles, so that would definitely fall within the 5% limit in most cases.

I would suggest no more than a paragraph or so. If you have to rely on more than that, you can just link to the page and say “Read this page” or refer people to the relevant parts. If your source is not online, just cite the book you are referring to and try to restate in your own words what the text is saying, unless there is a particular phrase, sentence, statistic, etc. that needs to be reproduced verbatim.

Basically, try to use as little as necessary to get the point across. If you can’t do that in less than 5% of the text, you probably need to put some more thought into what you’re posting and why, and come up with your own take on it.

[Ice_Wolf]

*Originally posted by Ellis Dee *
**I read that…it didn’t/doesn’t appear to answer my question, as I quoted a book, not an article. Obviously, 5% of the 200 page book wouldn’t be kosher.

Oh well, I’ll just assume it was fine but try not to do it anymore.

Yeesh. **

Yeesh?

No, I was quoting the FAQs because in matters of board policy, it’s best not to comment on them unless you’re a member of staff, in case what’s said is misconstrued. Sorry, I wasn’t trying to make you feel put upon in any way. It was also in case you hadn’t seen the FAQs. I’m glad that, in fact, you had.

[bibliophage]

A paragraph or two is fine. Since two of the three paragraphs you quoted are short, I think you’re okay.

[UncleBeer]

That post of yours looks perfectly acceptable, Ellis Dee. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Cecil quote more than what you did in his columns. And that’s probably a pretty good yardstick, no?

[UncleBeer]

Bib, you book-eatin’ bastard. If I hadn’t stopped to read the whole thread, I’d have beat you on this one. Damn youuuuuuu.