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What re the rules regarding posting content from other sites? What I wanna do is start a site where I post articles I like from other sites and include my own blog postings. What's the best way to do something like that? It seems like I've seen sites like that, where it's a site that consists mainly of articles from other sites. Would a free wordpress.com blog be the wrong way to go about that? Would wordpress.org be the right way?
Thanks.
The blog I need help with is omeo2013.wordpress.com.
It doesn't matter whether your blog is here or elsewhere, the issue is copyright law. Any original work is automatically copyrighted the moment the first word is set down.
You have to abide by the copyright and use guidelines on each and every site. There is a section of the copyright laws about fair use, but there is no hard and fast definition about what that is as it depends on the length of the piece and how much you take from it. In general, you are only allowed to quote a small portion in your articles for discussion or review purposes.
I've gone after over 100 that have copied my stuff in its entirety without my permission and in a good number of those cases, the web hosts shut the site down entirely after I filed the DMCA violation notice. Web hosts have to by law or they risk getting their business shut down, or worse having the authorities come after them.
If there isn't a copyright or use or terms of use statement on the site, CONTACT THEM AND ASK before blindly copying and posting someone else's stuff. You really don't want to get into content theft and all quagmire that can bring down on you.
You need to read these two documents and be really clear about what you are doing and how copyright law applies.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
You also need to search the internet about copyright, fair use, and especially about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
We've ALL seen lots of sites like that. When I get really bored I go through WordPress.com and look for them. Then I report them to staff, and usually within an hour the entire blog has been deleted by staff.
Blogs hosted elsewhere generally take longer, but they do get deleted. You can see how it works on http://stolen.wordpress.com
Write your own material or negotiate with the write and pay them.
http://theshebeenclub.com/2009/10/01/pay-the-writer-by-harlan-ellison/
Thanks, guys. Sounds like I'm better off just quoting small portions of other people's articles, giving my thoughts on the story, and adding a link to the actual article. I'll be careful and do some research on it. Thanks again.
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