What Material Can you Use as Posts for your Blog? By Phyllis Zimbler Miller

by Phyllis Zimbler Miller:

Disclaimer:  I am not an attorney.  But I did start out in my professional life as a newspaper journalist, and I am thus particularly attuned to what may be copyright infringement.

 

Recently I noticed on someone’s blog that he had published as a blog post a complete article from a major newspaper.  And, yes, the blog owner had attributed the name of the paper and the author, but this is surely not covered under the definition of fair use.

 

How do you deal with wanting to share copyright-covered information with your blog readers?  There are several ways:

 

If an article has been submitted to an article directory, that means you have the right to use the entire article on your blog as long as you include the author’s resource (bio) box at the end of the article.

 

If a post has been published on someone else’s blog and that blog owner has the copyright, you can ask that person if you can “reprint by permission” the blog post with full attribution.

 

Perhaps the best thing is to say “thanks to person X for getting me thinking of this topic” – insert the link to the article – “and here’s my opinion …”

 

You can refer to points in the article as you discuss the same issues, attributing the ideas to the writer and the article publisher.  You can even quote from the article with attribution.  How much you can quote is a question for a copyright attorney. 

 

Repeat of the disclaimer: I am not an attorney.  What I have offered above are some common-sense considerations when you want to carry material on your blog from other sources.  And there’s another possibility:

 

I sometimes receive emails on military-related topics.  When I feel the emails are of significance, I will ask the email sender for permission to run the email along with attribution.  (For an example, see my Mrs. Lieutenant blog post “Free HeroBracelet for Gold Star Families” athttp://budurl.com/freeherobracelet )

 

And many people who write for the Internet are quite pleased to share their content with a bigger audience.  But you must be careful to honor the creation of those writers and not take advantage, even unintentionally, of their material.

© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC

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