WebRev Blog

Last Spring, I wrote a series of posts about Blogging Law and Etiquette, and one of the topics covered was "Fair Use."  While the fair use law does protect bloggers in cases where they use material found elsewhere on the web, the law does not protect plagiarism. 

Grammar Girl has a great post this week on this topic, What is Plagiarism?  She defines it as:

Plagiarism is the act of presenting the words or ideas of someone else as if they are your own words or ideas; in other words, it’s not giving credit where credit is due--and that’s bad...especially when the plagiarized work is submitted for a grade or appears in a publication.

Grammar Girl's post is mostly addressing the topic from the academic standpoint, and even includes an example of a student plagiarizing himself.  Fortunately, in blogging, you can plagiarize yourself (recycle your content) all you want, but you still cannot plagiarize the work of others.

In blogging, we also don't typically adhere to the same style guides that are used in academia. Instead, we use pingbacks (a.k.a. trackbacks), which are hyperlinks back to the original source if it is posted online (as I've done above, linking to Grammar Girl's post).

In the case where we're quoting from or re-using a bit of print media that is not published online, the citation rules are rather informal (i.e., Your citation does not need to be in APA or MLA format), but you DO need to explain very clearly where you got the material.  I usually try to find the book on Amazon or wherever it's being sold and link to that.

In blogging, there is an additional benefit to linking to your sources, besides simply reserving your integrity, self respect, and legal standing.  Linking to reputable bloggers and websites helps you build page rank, which I've written about extensively on the WebRev blog.  Basically, as a blogger, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing the right thing.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking. 
 

As bloggers, and readers of blogs, we often find quotes, videos, photos, cartoons, etc., on the web that we would like to share on our own blogs.  How do we know what is okay to share, without violating copyright and plagiarism laws?  We're going to talk about that this week.  Today, let's start with the blogger's best legal friend: Fair Use.

Fair Use Law basically allows you as a blogger to use copyrighted material on your blog as long as you are not re-selling the material, and as long as you are using material strictly for informational or educational purposes.  For example, it is okay to quote from another blogger (without first obtaining perission) to either critique the information in that blog post or to use it to help make a point.  It is not okay for you to take a quote from another blogger, stick it on a T-Shirt and sell it, without that blogger's express permission.  Here are the four instances which the U.S. Copyright Office lists as "fair use":

 

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

 

Keep in mind that this "Fair Use," law will not keep you from getting sued.  It will just help you in case you do get sued, but this process might still be very expensive, in terms of attorney fees.  We are going to talk more this week about blogger etiquette that can help prevent you from making other bloggers and webmasters angry enough to consider taking legal action.  For starters, however, in regard to "fair use," I recommend using a "Fair Use Disclaimer" somewhere on your site, and making it clear that you will gladly remove any copyrighted material at the request of the copyright owner.  Just because you have (probably) have a legal right to use something on your website does not mean it's always a good idea to do so. 

Also see:

• U.S. Copyright Office: Fair Use
• Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center
• NOLO: The 'Fair Use' Rule:  When the use of copyrighted material is acceptable
• The Publishing Law Center: Parody: Fair Use or Copyright Infringement

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is a trainer and tech writer in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking. Her weakness is the mocha frappuccino.