More and more on Gather, I see folks quoting news articles in their entirety. Now, there are nice points of blogger etiquette (such as, giving credit to the blog or email contact who tipped you on a story). But quoting an article from a copyrighted source such as a newspaper, magazine, professional or amateur web site -- is illegal. Some people would say it was theft.
If you have any questions as to what constitutes "fair use" of copyrighted materials, or what liability you might incur by humorously imagining the demise of a public figure (say by torture while imprisoned in US territory on Cuba), there is help for you!
The Electronic Frontier Foundation -- the ACLU of the net -- has a legal guide for bloggers. It's got a lot of material, and it's not an easy read -- and in many cases, it really doesn't give conclusive answers. But it might help you understand how to take better responsibility for what you write.
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Comments: 12
Magi
For just fair-use and blogging, try just this.
I get the impression that if you want to quote one or a few paragraphs with attribution, it's unlikely to raise a fuss. This is pretty common practice, in use across major enough blogs that the papers almost certainly know about it and haven't acted to prevent it. But a full article is out of bounds, and lack of attribution is considered, as in any other medium, plagiarism.
Gather actively seeks to protect user works. If you believe content is a copied work or falls outside fair use guidelines, please flag it and our editorial team will research the issue and take appropriate corrective action. Thanks for helping ensure Gather members and other writers elsewhere receive their due for their hard work.
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Tom Gerace is CEO of Gather.com
And I really do think that citations and such are an issue of education. For example, I've seen people say "I got this from a news site" but not say which, and not list a link. I'm sure that's hard on the copyright holder, but it's also hard on me, when I have to go to google and take some significant ten words out of the text and search Google News to find the original.
I followed the link you posted in answer to my comment. It's very good.
Perhaps this link should be incorporated somewhere in the help/ FAQ section of Gather - Tom, please note this suggestion.
Magi