Ellsworth
01-17-2011, 09:15 AM
We're going to have to ask that people not re-post large sections of content from other websites on our forum. That would include re-posting: news articles, journal articles, magazine articles, blog posts, information from commercial websites, et cetera.
This change has become necessary because a company called Righthaven (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righthaven_LLC)has recently started suing forums owners (http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/aug/11/righthaven-sues-democratic-underground-website-ove/), individual forum posters (http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jan/12/righthaven-extends-copyright-lawsuit-campaign-indi/), and bloggers (https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers) over re-posted content.
This is primarily an issue when entire articles were re-posted, or large sections from entire articles. Quoting one or two sentences from a long article should still be fine, since it would fall under "fair use." Quoting one or two sentences from a short article would not be ok, since they would constitute a majority of the work.
So if you find something cool on the web you want to share, just write a few sentences describing what the article is about, in your own words. Then include a link to the article in your post.
We appreciate your understanding about this unavoidable policy change.
This change has become necessary because a company called Righthaven (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righthaven_LLC)has recently started suing forums owners (http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/aug/11/righthaven-sues-democratic-underground-website-ove/), individual forum posters (http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jan/12/righthaven-extends-copyright-lawsuit-campaign-indi/), and bloggers (https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers) over re-posted content.
This is primarily an issue when entire articles were re-posted, or large sections from entire articles. Quoting one or two sentences from a long article should still be fine, since it would fall under "fair use." Quoting one or two sentences from a short article would not be ok, since they would constitute a majority of the work.
So if you find something cool on the web you want to share, just write a few sentences describing what the article is about, in your own words. Then include a link to the article in your post.
We appreciate your understanding about this unavoidable policy change.