It's still theft, even if you credit the author

That is a shame. Don’t worry since your site is more powerful it will only hurt their site for duplicate content.

Thanks Chris,

I really do believe that most of the people who take the content don’t realize that they are stealing. Especially those who include my name and copyright information. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I don’t ask them to remove the offending content. The New York Times does have a reprint policy that people who want to reprint my content with permission can use. And as I mentioned in the post, linking to my articles is always appreciated.

I’d like to see those sites publish your article about them stealing your work. I wonder if they would “get it.”

The web is developing in a way that creates a need to rethink copyright and ownership of words… no offence, but your contrubutions to the web are only words, and you make them public.

M.E.: I’m not offended. Lots of people are rethinking copyright. But the reality is that until the laws are changed, copying without permission is still theft.

If you disagree with the laws, then you should be working to change them. Not just breaking them for the heck of it or to make a point.

There seems to be a mentality in our country that you can pick and choose which laws you want to live by, and which ones don’t apply to you!

This is leading to a very chaotic society, where we tend to just do what we want and if caught, may discontinue, but never admit that we were wrong in the first place!

I have a problem when people think that words presented in a digital (and relatively free) domain are automatically public domain. You could push that to extremes to include the web page design since that is expressed in “words” via CSS and HTML. Those “words” would be considered public domain as well.

I think an author has every right to expect that their words are used in accordance to their wishes. They make their living, directly or indirectly, by what they publish. To say their efforts become your property just by reading them isn’t exactly fair.

I have seen some very easy means of authors to share their work, saying that the information they present is free for use, limited use, or all rights restricted. We should honor that or risk shutting down the very means them to share ideas.

I agree with you in principle. However, I’m honestly confused about one point. When I write a paper that uses a quote or a paragraph from another book, it is legal to use the author’s copyrighted content as long as I source the book and author.

What is the difference between that and creating a website that quotes content from another site?

Thanks,

Jeff

When it comes to writing copy, that is unnacceptable. When it comes to open source code, you need to credit the author but it is still open source which means it is meant to be distributed and shared and if it’s something you use quite a bit, throw some change their way.

Hi Jeff,

When you quote from a source in an academic paper, you’re not supposed to duplicate the entire source. The idea is to pick a pertinent sentence or two (maybe even a paragraph or so) that directly supports the point you’re trying to make in your paper. This is part of what is called “fair use” — the concept that allows us to share ideas and information without infringing on the author’s rights.

In Jennifer’s case, her work wasn’t merely quoted — it was duplicated in its entirety. This isn’t fair use. And when she isn’t even credited, it’s not merely theft, it’s plagiarism (which is probably only more shocking to academics).

Copyright was originally developed both as a way to protect an author’s/artist’s work and to encourage continued production of that work. There are and should be limits to that protection — the author’s lifetime, for example (although his has been unreasonably extended and helps only the publishers). But while the author is still alive, his words are and should be his. The creative process — whether it produces literature, music, art, or nonfiction instructional material — is work. It can be very hard work. This is labor for which the author/artist should be compensated.

Whether the fruits of that labor are printed in a hard-bound book, a slick magazine, or on the web shouldn’t matter. The work still belongs to its creator, and just because it’s in a digital format and therefore easier to steal shouldn’t change that.

M.E. said: The web is developing in a way that creates a need to rethink copyright and ownership of words… no offence, but your contrubutions to the web are only words, and you make them public.

And what do you do for a living, M.E.?

If you’re a carpenter, I suppose that what you do is only sticks, so anybody should be able to take it over.

If you’re a surgeon, you aren’t even creating anything, so why should anybody pay the bill?

I could go on, but I suppose you get the point. Theft is theft.

It is amazing how many people think that other people should not get paid for doing their job but who would be extremely upset if the situation were reversed and they had all their work stolen and didn’t get paid for it. Those who write for a living are entitled to have their work protected by copyright.

It’s not theft, it’s copyright infringement. You still have your article.

I think it’s important not mistakenly equate the two, you wouldn’t want to muddy the conceptual waters for people rethinking copyright as you say.

Hi Greg: You and I will have to disagree about whether it’s theft or not.

I am paid by how many people view my articles – if the article is reprinted somewhere else without permission, I have lost those views and therefore that revenue. This loss in revenue is stolen from me or any copyright holder when the content is posted without permission.

It’s not muddying the waters to call it theft – they are stealing. I am willing to believe that they don’t realize that they are stealing, but that doesn’t make it not stealing.

Jennifer, I understand your point about copyright law. However, I think your argument is diminished by not covering fair use in your post. Fair use is also part of copyright law.

Tim:

If you read the article I linked to in the post, you would have seen an entire section on fair use.

Sure, fair use is a part of copyright law. But the point of this blog post was that these people are taking the entire article and posting it on their site. This is not fair use, and by putting something in about fair use, it implies that it might be considered fair use.

Interestingly enough, most blogs that I read don’t generally quote anything from the articles they link to. They just link to them. So fair use wouldn’t apply there either.

The other thing to keep in mind when using fair use as your defense is this: If you claim fair use, you are admitting infringement. In other words, if you’re taken to court because the owner feels you quoted too much, and you claim fair use you’ve admitted that you took the content. If you lose in that case, you can lose big because you don’t have any recourse – you admitted infringing on the copyright.

Insisting it’s a mere infringement and not theft is just diverting the issue. The point is that it ought not to be done in the first place, and that it’s depriving the writer of the original of their rights and often part of their income.

The ignorance regarding basic copyright law is astounding. It ought to be taught at junior school level when kids start writing papers, both in terms of sourcing from the net and printed material.