Reposting of copyrighted content from online articles

Many of you may have heard that our fellow fan site, The Fastlane, has been hit with a lawsuit because of a review from an online publication re-posted on their website.

I'm asking that no one do this in the future here, and that if you have done it in the past, you go back and edit the posts to the link and your own commentary.

I'd do it myself but I'm in the midst of moving - the movers come in a few hours - and I simply cannot do it for you at this point. I need your cooperation.

Thanks to those who contacted me about this today, including Melissa and Lisa themselves.

I will work on finding my posts tomorrow. I have no idea what I may have posted over the years. Anyway to delete all my history? just kidding.

That was very decent of Lisa and Melissa to contact you. I can't imagine how scary that is. I mean, these are fansites, for fun and friendship... you don't think you are going to get in trouble for posting a review and including a link.

Thanks for giving us the direction to edit the posts.

You can do an advanced search within your own posts - use the search term "http://www." and that will find all your posts with links in them.

Or, you could just go back and look over the review and press threads, where almost all of this takes place.

Just delete the text you copied and pasted and leave the link. Thanks!

WOW--Just WOW!!! :-( I'll do my best!

Should be interesting to see how that lawsuit goes. My understanding was that only individuals were liable for their posts and that the internet hosts were protected by an act of Congress:

http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-gui...ns-decency-act

I hate to ask, but in the meantime what about copyrighted concert videos? Do you want these removed too?

I don't think Soda's going to be available for the next few hours while she's moving, so let's do just the ones she's requesting to be removed for now - the articles only.

First of all - that was very gracious of Lisa and Melissa from the Fastlane to give Soda a headsup on this, and I hope that things work out well for them. I will, hopefully, have some time tonight and over the weekend to help out by searching the sites.

And just to reiterate - you can leave the link and your comments, but delete the review itself if you find anything.

Oh man! I figured if you posted the link along with the article so they would get their recognition, then it would be alright with them.

Thanks to L & M for the heads up!

I'll do my best, but it's a busy day at work today, so it may be tonight before I can get them all.

Ok--just went thru 483 post of mine with links in them, :dizzy: and deleted the reviews or anything that was posted from a review or article, etc... I hope I got everything I needed to.

Soda, Dreamer-If I can help in ANY way (keep in mind-not to bright here), please don't hesitate to ask and I will try to do whatever is needed. Anything to keep us up and running and out of trouble!!

There is some grey area in there that I'm certainly not sure about the details for.

It seems that I recall that you can quote a small part of an article to show relevance and include the link and not be in trouble for it.

I know I had one post where I quoted a part of a Rolling Stone article that mentioned Joe Walsh...but not the entire article.

Ironic.....I discovered today (much NOT to my surprise)....the few articles that I had copied in entirety are not accessible via the link that I posted to it. They have been archived by the publisher of the articles! So might as well delete the entire post.

Well I took care of the few that I had posted. This is one time when having only a few hundred posts came in handy....

Wow. Horrible.

Yeah, horrible indeed. At least L&M were kind enough to let you know. I hope things go well for them. So much for freedom of information and the right to free speech! I know for a fact I haven't posted any reviews (other than my own) so I reckon I should be ok, but let me know if otherwise. As I said to Lou earlier, if somebody wanted to link to or comment on a review I wrote, I'd be flattered!

Hope the moving goes well too Nancy! Good luck.:thumbsup:

Hopefully, I've gotten all of mine!

It might be helpful if anyone sees one somewhere to pm the poster as to where it is so they can go delete it.

If I can be of help, too, please let me know.

Hopefully I got all mine too. Most of mine were translations from last summers tour overseas.

Yes, if anyone notices I missed an article, please let me know.

CAUTIONARY NOTE:

Hey everyone – I just want to caution folks to please refrain from posting any specific information about these lawsuits or parties involved until I talk to our board administrator. Because of the legal implications involved here, I’d say we should play it safe and limit our discussions to how to go about deleting any potentially damaging info.

This is a great community and I know we all want to keep it that way. I know this post may seem reactionary, but that's because it is. We will get this all sorted out soon, I', sure. Thanks everyone for your understanding, help, and cooperation.

When I post links I don't actually quote the articles. But I have posted photos from other sites on occasion. Unless there is a specific copyright issue with photos I would think those would be OK.

I hope I got all of mine! Spent an hour this morning going thru all the posts as Nancy suggested.

Wow! That is terible news. I hope this is helpful.

Written permission from the person holding the copyright is often required to reproduce copyrighted material.

Without a note or letter--or an e-mail, from the owner of a copyright; I wouldn't advise anyone to run anything on a website that might be someone else's copyrighted material--, including any videographic or photographic items.
This is to stay clear of anything someone might claim was their own.

You can run your own personally written reviews (writtten by you), personally taken photos (photos taken by you),--whatever--because you are the person with the copyright to your own original created works. (That is, unless you transfer or sell your own right to your own original created works to somebody else, officially).
(For example, if someone else took a picture, they are who own the copyright to the photographic image, unless they sell or transfer their copyright to someone else; a company, for example. In this same example, after a transfer of copyright from an original photographer to a company, the company would subsequently own the copyright to reproducting copies of the photographic image instead of the photographer who took the picture originally).
Copyright is approximately the right to copy, reproduce, duplicate or distribute copies of something.

There are any real-life exceptions to the written permission guideline--sometimes this would include small excerpts or phrases credited to the copyright owner; which may be related to another person's original work; but are not, in addition, an integral (core-level) re-use of the other person's work.
There are broader guidelines for articles written by and for academia, for instance--but there's no real certainty of a judge's decision in any case.

If there's some real question of any copyright violation, first immediately offer to remove and rescind anything that could cause anyone any harm of any kind.


The U.S. Copyright Office has a website with general information topics to browse through at www.copyright.gov, but I don't know what it says about the online realm. You can order free government circulars about copyrights.

I have deleted as much as I can of photos which were on other sites.

Hopefully I have caught any of the articles I posted. I usually just post the link so there weren't too many. :fear:

Thank you to those who posted more information which helps us to better understand what is going on.



Nancy, hope your move is hassle free!

WOW! I hope I have now deleted all in the press and reviews threads ! I was very busy with it!LOL
If anyone notices I missed an article, please let me know. Thanks!

Checking in, but not leaving.............................:grooving:


I think I got all of mine outta there.


As requested above, please let me know if I missed aything that needs to go.

Thanks so much for you cooperation guys! I can only get on the internet sporadically while in transit - I get to Memphis on Saturday and then I have to get hooked up in my new place. That's why I've been "in absentia" at this important time and Dreamer has been forced to act in my stead - of course the timing is poor, but I just count my blessings that I'm not being sued as well (at least not yet, and hopefully with these preventative measures never).

Regarding YouTube or similar sites, anything that is hosted on another site is not going to affect me (when I say "hosted on another site" I mean the URL it comes from does not begin with www.eaglesonlinecentral.com or one of our sister sites. That's what's "hosted on my server"). It's when you copy and paste the content onto THIS site that it becomes a problem. Linking is not a problem. In fact, they like it when we link to them - brings them more traffic.

I know this kind of seems like a drag for those who have had so much fun posting things like these articles, but all it means is that we (the board members) have to take the time to follow the link before commenting on what you've posted. So, still keep an eye out for such things - just link to them (with your own commentary about the link to explain what it is) rather than re-posting them. Under "fair use," short excerpts are also OK for articles, but most people would rather just link to them.

Again, my thanks for your help and I'm sorry for all the bother it's caused! Don't let it interfere with your enjoyment of the board, please!

Thanks Nanc and enjoy your 'moving' experience! :grin:

Wow! You Borderers are great - but we already knew that, didn't we! :thumbsup: I am going to try to spend some time over the weekend going through the board and blogs looking for anything that may have been missed. Anyone else who has the time to help out, please let me know and we can work together. If anyone sees something that has been missed, if you can PM me, that would also help out a lot.

Thanks again everyone!

Nancy, it would take a lot more than this to interfere with my enjoyment of the board! :thumbsup: At first I thought you were up to one of your April Fool's jokes, but then I realized it's not April! :hilarious:

I'm still looking through my posts. My problem is that I have so many links to photos and mini-recordings that are on my site that virtually all of my posts have "some" external post...even if it is to an Avatar or Sig Pic or smilie.

I've only found a couple that I've had to delete or edit. Most of mine are quotes from some article pertaining specifically to the topic I was addressing with the post. For instance, a copied paragraph out of an article found in Rolling Stone with the link to the complete article included. That would probably be okay to leave in.

However, there were a couple of articles that I copied and pasted into message threads that I did have to delete...and the link to the site where the article appeared was no longer valid. So, for all intents and purposes, that is just a broken thread now.

What I would suggest in the future is that when posting published reviews, that we clip pertinent "cerpts" to lure the readers to linking to the entire article. For instance, if it is a review of some local newspaper about an Eagles concert and it is a "bad review", maybe just copy a sentence or two the author used to set the tone of the article and then provide the link.

Now, if that is not a valid method of quoting enough of the article to make it pertain to our forum here, then I guess we'll have to just paraphrase the article entirely...and that leads to a lot of misinterpretation....and liable if it is stated that this is what a particular author wrote...because HE DIDN"T WRITE IT. Damned if you do and Damned if you don't.

What I DO KNOW is that hardcopy publications like newspapers and magazines are really hurting with the advent of the Internet. I have a nephew who is the editor of a newspaper in Conway, Arkansas. He has told me that the newspaper business has just about been put out of business with the universal access to the Internet. They are very proprietary with the content of their published work.

I knew Soda was moving, but didn't know when. I'm happy she was able to receive her emails letting her know what was going on. I almost copied Dreamer on my email, just in case Soda was't around. I just wanted to say, it's great that Soda can depend on Dreamer to assist on all the workings of this site to keep it running smoothly.

I know I am not alone when I say, thank you Soda and Dreamer for keeping this site wonderful, fun and friendly. I appreciate you ladies! :grouphug:

Do we have to worry about photo images at this point?

Awww - thanks, Ev - that is very sweet of you. I have to say I am glad to be able to help out in any way I can. Like many of you, these sites are a labor of love for me - not only because of Glenn, Don, Timothy, and Joe but for all of the fans who visit and post here as well.

Cyberhugs to you all!!! :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

As far as pictures, we're not worrying about them for now. If they are part of an article you are already deleting, then you should probably go ahead and delete it, but I wouldn't worry about other pics right now. :thumbsup:

Wow!!! Very cool of L&M to give Soda a head's up on this. I don't think I've posted any articles but I will go through my posts tonight after work and check. Just so I'm clear on this...It's only the posting of full articles that we have to worry about? Not pics or videos?

We are only concerned about full articles at the moment.

Just wanted to give everyone a little update about how we are coming along with our little 'project'. Over the weekend, with the help of Koala, TimothyBFan, timfan, and Freypower, we scanned almost all of the forums to identify posts that may need editing. It was quite an undertaking, and we are almost complete. That doesn't mean we found everything so, again, we appreciate all of your help in continuing to check and edit your own posts.

However, that was just the first part. The next step now is to attempt to edit or delete information without making the threads meaningless. That is going to be quite time-consuming, and it is something that we will probably be doing over the course of the next several weeks. We wanted to make everyone aware of this in case you still come across information and wonder why it hasn't been removed. We'll get through all of it in due time.

In the meantime, we just ask that going forward everyone follow the new practice. Remember, it is okay to link to an article and even post small excerpts from articles. However, please do not copy and paste most or all of an article or post an excerpt without linking to the original article. If you have any questions about any of this, please let us know. And once again, thanks for your help and cooperation with this.

You really have your work cut out for you and I appreciate you guys taking the time to do this.

Yes. Thanks to all of you who are helping out. You guys Rock! :thumbsup:

Keep up the good work folks. :thumbsup:

Don't want you guys getting sued too.

Must be a real bummer for the Fastlane people. :fear:


Carol-Lynn
SoCalGal:nahnah:

Thanks for all your hard work, everyone!:thumbsup:

I am reviving this old thread because I just had to delete some posts where one of our members posted the full text of several old newspaper articles. Because of potential legal issues, we do not allow this on The Border. As a reminder to all of our members, if you want to post copyright articles, please post the link to the site for the article rather than the text.

If you want to learn more about the legal implications of this, please read through this thread. Thanks!

Would it be OK for me to post a scan of one page from a book, if I credit the book's author and include the book's title, year and publisher? The scan doesn't contain text (aside from brief photo captions). The page has two photos of Randy Meisner's artwork - a clay sculpture and a study in chalk.

Thanks!

NMB, I'm thinking it should be okay as long as there is no explicit instructions in the book from the author or publisher forbidding it and as long as proper credit is given. But, keep in mind, permission from the copyright owner of the photographs is what matters in the end. So, if in doubt, you may want to contact them.

OK, thank you Dreamer.