Village Voice reports Hillary Clinton wins HillaryClinton.com from Squatter

[lawpal]

Mod edit: Please repost with a summary or link.

[Acro]

Such drama.

[namedropper]

Incidentally, it'd be nice if you did not violate the Village Voice copyright by posting the entire article here. A short bit and a link is well within Fair USe guidelines, copying the whole thing is not.

Same goes for other newspaper articles, by the way. It's bad enough you are doing it at all, but in a Legal Issues forum no less....

[lawpal]

I think you are incorrect. I did post the entire article, but at the same time I gave full attribution to the source, and posted a link to the source as well.

Incidentally, it'd be nice if you did not violate the Village Voice copyright by posting the entire article here. A short bit and a link is well within Fair USe guidelines, copying the whole thing is not.

Same goes for other newspaper articles, by the way. It's bad enough you are doing it at all, but in a Legal Issues forum no less....

[namedropper]

I think you are incorrect. I did post the entire article, but at the same time I gave full attribution to the source, and posted a link to the source as well.

And that means absolutely nothing in the way of defense for violating the copyright of the news article's owner. Fair Use laws allow you to take small snippets of articles, not copy and republish the full thing. I know that lots of people are confused (or just rather unconcerned) on this point, but since this is a Legal Issues forum I thought it was only appropriate to let you know.

Attribution, by the way, is a defense against plagiarism, not copyright infringement.

[Acro]

May I repeat myself: such drama :-D

[lawpal]

I still disagree with you. The four fundamental questions of fair use are as follows:

What is the character of the use?
What is the nature of the work to be used?
How much of the work will you use?
What effect would this use have on the market for the original or for permissions if the use were widespread?

Even republication of the entire article is only one factor to consider when conducting a review of "fair use." Yes, I reprinted the entire article, and that is one factor that weighs towards fair use, but at the same time I did so for what I deem to be educational purposes, the work in question relates to public information and public records, and the impact upon the market of the village voice is de minimus, if not nil. I gave full attribution, cited the source with a hyperlink, and claim no credit of authorship. Potential revenue loss to the village voice exists, but hardly a blip on their economic radar. Republication with attribution is certainly not an attempt to intentionally harm the market share of the village voice. To the contrary, I give credit where credit is due.

It is a balancing test. Not just one factor.

[Poker]

she effused, "I am excited by the opportunities offered by our new website to engage my friends and supporters to exchange information and ideas. Together, we can make a difference!"

Let's get real here. She's "excited by the opportunities offered by our new website to engage my friends and supporters to" donate to her 2008 presidential campain (a la Howard Dean).

[lawpal]

she "effused"

[sasquatch]

"...The campaign didn't discover Dinoia's page until last year, when a staffer was cruising around in search of domain names for another site..."

What a crock of stinking politician's shit.

[namedropper]

I still disagree with you. The four fundamental questions of fair use are as follows:

What is the character of the use?
What is the nature of the work to be used?
How much of the work will you use?
What effect would this use have on the market for the original or for permissions if the use were widespread?

Yes, let's look at those.

Character of use - You are looking to comment on it. That's fine, but you can do that with only a link or a summary. This is no justification for violating someone copyright. It is only if you could not link or if a summary were somehow inadequate that this would help your case.

What is the nature of the work to be used - news article. It's informational, from a service that gets it's money by provided information. There's nothing here that makes a case much for or against you copying the entire article, so it's irrelevant.

How much of the work did you use - All of it. You are clearly way out of line on this one.

How it effects the market for the original - Again, you are clearly out of line here. By including it for free and bypassing the advertizing revenue they generate via the website, you have taken earnings away from them. You could have linked to them.

So out of the four we have two that very clearly show you in the wrong, one that indicates you could have linked and one that doesn;t make all that much difference. Fair Use is a defense against claims of copyright ownership and the rights of the owner are protected by default. You must show a strong case in your favor in order to copy material someone else owns. You not only did not do that, the clear evidence is against you.

In the future please put the content in your own words or link to the article in question. It's not just a good idea, it's the law.

[lawpal]

I agree only to disagree with you, and I leave it at that. If the village voice wanted to make a fuss over this, that is their choice, but I suspect that to be highly unlikely.

[namedropper]

If the village voice wanted to make a fuss over this, that is their choice, but I suspect that to be highly unlikely.

The fact that so many people are violating the law that enforcement is difficult in no way excuses your infringement. Further, as this site makes money off of ads that run on the content, and the content you posted was used without permission, this violation is even worse than the typical infringement. Ad money that would have gone to the rightful owners instead goes to the owners of this site. There is no reason why you couldn't link to the article in question instead, your refusal to do so indicates an active disregard for their rights.

[lawpal]

thanks for your opinion

[jberryhill]

lawpal, the subject of posting entire articles to forums has been beat to death a zillion times. Go look up the copyright suits against freerepublic.com.

Google this: freerepublic.com copyright suit

And in the future, post a summary and a link. And instead of posting to a news story, posting the actual decision makes a lot more sense:

http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/414641.htm

The decision, btw, was back in March.

[Blarian]

I agree. I don't think entire articles should be copied and pasted on forums, especially if you don't have permission from the owner of the content to reproduce. Not a lawyer, but it seems like it's certainly illegal (and detrimental to this forum) to do so.

[jberryhill]

Since the issue comes up fairly frequently, the mods should keep this handy:

http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/cjoyce...0/LosAngT.html

Plaintiffs Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post Company publish newspapers in print and online versions. Defendant Free Republic is a "bulletin board" website whose members use the site to post news articles to which they add remarks or commentary. Other visitors to the site then read the articles and add their comments. For the most part, Free Republic members post the entire text of articles in which they are interested; among these are verbatim copies [*2] of articles from the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post websites. Plaintiffs' complaint alleges that the unauthorized copying and posting of the articles on the Free Republic site constitutes copyright infringement.

[...]

The fact that linking the text of an article as it appears on plaintiffs' websites to the Free Republic site, or summarizing the article's text, is not as easy or convenient for Free Republic users as full text posting does not render the practice a fair use. Rather, the focus of the inquiry must be whether verbatim copying is necessary to defendants' critical purpose. See Campbell, supra, 510 U.S. at 586-87; Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group, Inc., 150 F.3d 132, 144 (2d Cir. 1998) ("The inquiry must focus upon whether 'the extent of . . . copying' is consistent with or more than necessary to further 'the purpose and character of the use'"); Rogers v. Koons, 960 F.2d 301, 311 (2d Cir. 1992) ("It is not fair use when more of the original is copied than necessary"); Walt Disney Prods. v. Air Pirates, 581 F.2d 751, 758 (9th Cir. 1978) ("while other factors in the fair use calculus may not be sufficient by themselves to preclude the fair use defense, . . . excessive copying precludes fair use").

Defendants have not met their burden of demonstrating that verbatim copying of all or a substantial [*39] portion of plaintiffs' articles is necessary to achieve their critical purpose. They argue that the purpose of full text posting is to enable Free Republic users to criticize the manner in which the media covers current events. n46 The statement or purpose found on the website, however, is somewhat different. There, defendants state that visitors to the Free Republic site "are encouraged to comment on the news of the day . . . and . . . to contribute whatever information they may have to help others better understand a particular story." n47 In fact, a review of the representative articles submitted by defendants reveals that visitors' commentary focuses much more on the news of the day than it does on the manner in which the media reports that news. n48 This is significant, since the extent of copying that might be necessary to comment on the nature of the media's coverage of a news event is arguably greater than the amount needed to facilitate comment on the event itself. Commentary on news events requires only recitation of the underlying facts, not verbatim repetition of another's creative expression of those facts in a news article. So too, the fact that a particular [*40] media outlet published a given story, or approached that story from a particular angle can be communicated to a large degree without posting a full text copy of the report. n49 For this reason, the court concludes that verbatim posting of plaintiffs' articles is "more than is necessary" to further defendants' critical purpose. See Castle Rock Entertainment, supra, 150 F.3d at 144. See also Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Moral Majority, Inc., 796 F.2d 1148, 1153 (9th Cir. 1986) (examining whether defendant copied "more than was necessary" in responding to a parody).

Lawpal, for your edification, you should read the entire decision (for which certiori was denied by the Supreme Court), to see how the "fair use" factors are handled in the situation where a forum user posts an entire news article verbatim.

It is not just Dan Norder's opinion, but it is the settled law of at least one Circuit Court of Appeals that posting news articles on a forum website is copyright infringement not subject to a "fair use" defense.

In this suit alone, freerepublic.com ended up paying $30,000 to settle before remand. Whether or not the likelihood of enforcement is low - you are gambling with other people's money.

[Dave Zan]

So that means if someone has a complaint with a registrar or Hosting company
and posts a full copy of a message from that provider that has the copyright
sign, then that provider can force the person to remove it or sue the person
for copyright infringement?

Slick move...

[Acro]

Cum quaestor in Sicilia fuissem, iudices, itaque ex ea provincia decessissem ut Siculis omnibus iucundam diuturnamque memoriam quaesturae nominisque mei relinquerem, factum est uti cum summum in veteribus patronis multis, tum non nullum etiam in me praesidium suis fortunis constitutum esse arbitrarentur.

[Mr. Deleted]

back on topic:
I'd hate to have her as the president, after her udrp.