# How long a quote from a large book is still "fair use" by SDMB standards? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 30, 2013, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913 "2013-07-30T15:52:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/1 "2013-07-30T15:52:08Z")
Just wondering if the SDMB has any guidelines: is there an absolute word limit for quoting copyright material that triggers your concerns, regardless of the length of the source? or if the source is quite lengthy, can there be a longer quote from it than if the source is very short? For instance, quoting 250 words from a news article that’s about 300 words long isn’t likely fair use; but quoting 250 words from a book that’s 200 pages long might be? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/2 "2013-07-30T17:02:55Z")
I am not a lawyer. In consequence, I am neither your lawyer nor SDMB’s. And, of course, this is not legal advice. My reading of Fair Use? It’s fair use after you’ve been sued by a copyright holder and successfully defended the accusation with a Fair Use defense. 17 USC § 107 (Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Fair Use) does name some examples of criteria that would support judging that a alleged infringement should be decided as fair use, but it still has to be decided. Not pre-emptively, as far as I can tell; only after the fact in the challenge-and-response of our great adversarial legal system. I think the following [Wikipedia quote](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Common_Misunderstandings) summarizes it well: > [@Wikipedia article on Fair Use](#): > > _Strict adherence to fair use protects you from being sued._ Fair use is an affirmative defense against an infringement suit; it does not restrain anyone from suing. The copyright holder may legitimately disagree that a given use is fair, and they have the right to have the matter decided by a court. Thus, fair use does not guarantee that a lawsuit will be prevented. More practically speaking, I suspect it’s “how much copying can I get away with and defend in good faith?” Or, speculating from the SDMB perspective, “how much will this post get the Board in trouble?” Of course, in the modern internet, I’d expect a DMCA takedown before a lawsuit. And I suspect the SDMB would jump on it, since the safe harbor provisions rely on that kind of snappy response. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/3 "2013-07-30T17:15:09Z")
[SDMB policy.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7696968&postcount=3) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/4 "2013-07-30T17:21:57Z")
yes, but it doesn’t answer the question. 5% from an article; what about from a book? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/5 "2013-07-30T17:24:28Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [SDMB policy.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7696968&postcount=3) Those are good, conservative policies. It would take a raving mad-dog copyright holder to come after you if you toe that line. ETA: I missed the issue of quoting a book. 5% may be a long post. Also, _[de minimus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis)_ defense has been shot down in the context of sampling music. Who knows what a defensible percentage will be for copyrighted books? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/6 "2013-07-30T17:25:19Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > yes, but it doesn’t answer the question. 5% from an article; what about from a book? I think the last sentence covers that: > [@](#): > > If you want to refer to long passages, provide a hyperlink to a site that has rights to reproduce the material. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/7 "2013-07-30T17:27:14Z")
so you can’t quote from an old source that is still in copyright but not on the net? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/8 "2013-07-30T17:30:26Z")
We don’t have a specific word limit. We ask that people use the shortest quote they can reasonably use to get their point across and not use an overly large portion of the original work (or the entire thing). ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/9 "2013-07-30T17:31:12Z")
Deleted ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/10 "2013-07-30T17:31:24Z")
I think that what they are saying is that short quotes are o.k., but anything more should be a summary in your own words with a reference to the original text. edited to add: Ninja’d by Da Admin. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/11 "2013-07-30T17:31:32Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > so you can’t quote from an old source that is still in copyright but not on the net? I’m not a mod (like I’m not a lawyer), but it would appear your best recourse would be to paraphrase. But if you’re trying to quote for aesthetics rather than facts, you may be out of luck. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-a-quote-from-a-large-book-is-still-fair-use-by-sdmb-standards/664913/12 "2013-07-30T17:35:35Z")
That’s because the answer is rather simple. “Don’t get us into legal trouble. If we think what you did _ **might** _ get us into legal trouble, we will respond in a way that makes us reasonably sure that we have avoided that trouble. If that means you get banned, too bad for you. You have no other rights. Just look at the user agreement. It makes it quite clear. There are no other rules. The decisions of the staff are final.” And quite frankly, that’s the attitude (and policy) I would have under similar circumstances. I can’t fault TPTB for that policy. The SDMB is _ **not** _ a public resource.