Have we evolved a "house rule" on how we deal with quotes?

From time to time it is interesting to pick up information from other sites. I've tried it various ways:

(i) A pure link - This is fine but some people don't want to follow them (or like many of us, don't have much time) so lose the point. It also means that over time, the link may not work and the information is lost.

(ii) A (short) quote in ""'s (inverted commas, quote marks or whatever) followed by a link which
a) acknowledges the quote and
b) allows those who want to know more to find out for themselves

I wonder if any of our lawyers (or legally minded contributors) are aware of the copyright issues involved.

Any views?

Dear jmh: I have wondered about this. I does seem likely that copying and inserting quotes might be illegal. It would be nice to know, and I think we owe it to Anu not to be in violation. wwh

From my newspaper days : quotes are OK as long as credit is given to original author and/or publication and only a short quote used as a "review" or similar.
I now await The Word from the worker bees who are having a day off ...
wow

assuming that nothing posted here is of a commercial nature, the key concept is "fair use". here is the statutory language about fair use found in Section 107 of the Copyright Act:

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use, the factors to be considered shall include-- 1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a 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; and 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copy righted work.

so there is the (excerpted) legalese. here is something I copped from somewhere: When you are about to make a copy, a strident annoying bell should go off in your head. You should heed this as a warning that you need to think clearly and objectively about what you are about to copy. Put yourself in the place of the person whose work you want to copy; how would she feel about what you want to do? [emphasis added]

http://www.efuse.com/Plan/copyright2.html

Section 107 of the Copyright Act

But we're dealing with international copywrite laws on the internet. That doesn't seem to deal with either international standards or the internet.

Tsuwm, I noticed your irony: you used both a partial quote, which you reffed by saying it was something I copped from somewhere, and gave a link as well. And this is one I took the time to go to, because it was my use of a copyrighted quote that sparked off this discussion. (I will say in my defense that I am aware that there is no significant difference in copying something to here and in printing it: I just put that so I could use my secret word.)

This is something I'm going to need help with: being of a completely non-commercial bent, and never in my life having created anything that someone else would want, I can't put myself in the place of the person whose work I want to copy. All I can think of is that I'd be honored that somebody valued it that much.
And yet--I can certainly understand wanting recognition for the effort they've put in. (I read most of the site, and Jazz., it does mention the Web.) I think of your WWFTD site, and how angry you'd be if someone took a quote and implied it was theirs. And that doesn't even bring in the
issue about money. What a mess.

Jo, if we need a guideline for how or if we quote things on AWADtalk, it's going to have to come from somebody who knows a lot more than I do.

Has anyone sent a note off to Father Steve...being a judge, I would think he might have a better handle on this (or know someone who does)

>But we're dealing with international copywrite laws...

I'm sorry jazz, but I just can't take your comment seriously as long as you don't recognize the difference between copywrite and copyright -- it's the right to copy that we're talking about. (copywrite would be adjectivizing the noun copywriter)

From the MHRA Style Book, 4th Edition (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 1991] (p. 30):

It is the responsibility of an author to obtain permission for the quotation of any copyright material if such permission is necessary. Normally it is unnecessary to seek permission for the quotation of brief passages in a scholarly work [...] In general, it may be said that the length of the quoted passage and the use to which it is put should be fair to the author and publisher of the work quoted in that nothing is done to diminish the value of their publication.

These are the guidelines for us researchers who are not at all legal experts and still need to use quotes and refer to other people's work in our own. I think the key phrase here is "the length of the quoted passage and the use to which it is put should be fair to the author and publisher". We are using the material here for learning purposes, and as far as I can see, people who use extraneous material on this site provide sources and references alongside. Both of these seem to me to be quite "fair" practices.

>That doesn't seem to deal with either international standards or the internet.

UK law is based on European law in this area, so I'd be surprised if other European countries are much different. Once the Aussies and Kiwis and wake up they can check out their laws.

Comparing the site below:
http://ahds.ac.uk/bkgd/copyrightfaq.html#faq3
to Tsuwm's USA site it looks like the broad brush strokes are similar, including the same concept of "fair dealing". Interestingly (or not), I note that the lifetime of the copyright for literary works (including e-mail!) is 70 years after death of the author, compared to 50 years in the USA (and was until recently based on the date of the published work). There are clearly differences in detail but the basic concept on which the law is based is similar.

Literary Works: Written works Includes lyrics, tables, compilations, computer programmes, letters, memoranda, e-mail and WWW pages. Authors life plus 70 years after death. Anonymous/corporation authors: 70 years from year of publication. Special rules for unpublished works

>All I can think of is that I'd be honored that somebody valued it that much.

This is true but put yourself in the shoes of an artist, say John Denver. He would have been (oops) "delighted" if you liked his song enough to record it and send copies to all your friends. He'd have been even be more happy if you bought each of them a CD, so that he got paid for his work.

We're hardly on the scale of an MP3 download site here but I do worry when we/I refer to sites which have clearly posted material which should be copyright onto their site. I suspect that the big lyrics site we looked at recently is above board but that someone who has posted the entire lyrics of a recent pop song onto their home page probably isn't. In which case short exerpts to illustrate a point are probably "fair dealing" but full versions are not. In the case of the traditional song lyrics that have been discussed, they are likely to be in the public domain, so are OK. Similarly Shakespeare, Keats etc are out of copyright but whilst Beowolf is out of copyright, a recent translation is not.

>These are the guidelines for us researchers who are not at all legal experts and still need to use quotes and refer to other people's work in our own. I think the key phrase here is "the length of the quoted passage and the use to which it is put should be fair to the author and publisher". We are using the material here for learning purposes, and as far as I can see, people who use extraneous material on this site provide sources and references alongside. Both of these seem to me to be quite "fair" practices.

I agree Marianna. I think that short quotes are probably fine and that when we use them they should be acknowledged, as they are at present, in most cases.

This is true but put yourself in the shoes of an artist, say John Denver. He'd be "delighted" if you liked his song enough to record it and send copies to all your friends.

Right now I reckon he'd settle for an aircraft fuel value that wasn't stiff and in an awkward position ...

Both my wife and myself have had to research international copyright law at various times. It's all amazingly similar (well, not so amazingly, really). The law says acknowledge, but for single lines or partial lines there is usually a deliberate grey area. The safest thing to do from both the ethical and the legal point of view is to acknowledge. Unless you are quoting wholesale, however, no one would quibble in a forum like this.

The big thing is that you put quotes around it or otherwise acknowledge that you aren't claiming it as your own work. Which I think we all do!

>The big thing is that you put quotes around it or otherwise acknowledge that you aren't claiming it as your own work. Which I think we all do!

Yup, I agree with this. In this forum, I have often seen people who got complimented on a quote susequently replying that they were quoting someone else.

Here, I think the acknowledgements are not done when the person feels it is obvious the quote is not theirs...eg, if I said "I cannot tell a lie" in the U.S. I would certainly not need to specify that George Washington was the one famous for having said this.

Or, as Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachesky would advise;

"... Let no-ones work evade your eyes
Why do you think the Good Lord madde your eyes?
Plagiarise, plagiarise, plagiarise -

But be certain you always call it 'research'!"
(Tom Lehrer)

Then, there's this old wheeze :

"Stealing from one is plagiarism,stealing from many is research."
Sorry,it's been around so long I have no idea of the originator.
wow

Or as Woody Guthrie said, "Oh, they just stole from me, but I stole from everybody."

"Stealing from one is plagiarism,stealing from many is research."

Yes, I can see how this quote might give a former journalist a level of comfort ...