It bothers me that two of our most intelligent hard working posters on this board are having parts of their postings deleted. I think both Kevin and Saul are owed an explanation as well as the entire board.
Strike anyone else as strange?
Jim
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It bothers me that two of our most intelligent hard working posters on this board are having parts of their postings deleted. I think both Kevin and Saul are owed an explanation as well as the entire board. Strike anyone else as strange?
Jim, they delete posts if you think you are breaking someone’s copyright by quoting too much of an article (even, apparently, if it’s a public article). It’s not a conspiracy against anyone.
Thanks for worrying about us though,
Saul
2 Likes
It isn’t a question of the hard work of the members posting … it is a legal interpretation of the ‘fair use’ provisions of US copyright law.
It is perfectly OK to quote a small portion of an article, then provide a link to the whole article. The issue rests on the definition of ‘small’. TMF often errs on the side of caution, much to the angst of us members (yes, I am also a member. My “TMF” designation comes from my role as a Fool One guide, but I act as a representative of One members back to TMF).
If you quote all, or a substantial portion of the article, you are going beyond “fair use”. The legal concept is designed to encourage you to click on through to the actual article, thus ‘rewarding’ the author/owner of the copyright. If we just copy the juicy parts here, enough so a reader doesn’t need to click through, we really are stealing IP.
Tiptree, Fool One guide
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It is perfectly OK to quote a small portion of an article, then provide a link to the whole article. The issue rests on the definition of ‘small’. TMF often errs on the side of caution, much to the angst of us members (yes, I am also a member. My “TMF” designation comes from my role as a Fool One guide, but I act as a representative of One members back to TMF).
If you quote all, or a substantial portion of the article, you are going beyond “fair use”. The legal concept is designed to encourage you to click on through to the actual article, thus ‘rewarding’ the author/owner of the copyright. If we just copy the juicy parts here, enough so a reader doesn’t need to click through, we really are stealing IP.
That makes a lot of sense, Tiptree, thank you for the clarification.
Thanks for the clarification, Tip and Saul.
Jim
That makes a lot of sense
Read on… http://discussion.fool.com/it-is-perfectly-ok-to-quote-a-small-p…
In replying, you broke “fair use”.
Not only did you quote nearly the entirety of Tiptree’s post, but you failed to link back or give credit to your quoted portion.
The TMF Copywrite Constable will soon be knocking on your hard drive.
Bob
2 Likes
TMF often errs on the side of caution,
This is entirely subjective. TMF errs on the side of caution (their privilege) while Yahoo will only pull posts if the copyright owner asks them to (their privilege). Unless the copyright owner loses income from the infringement there is little risk to copying as you usually will only get a cease and desist order.
I happen to like TMFs policy. A brief quote, enough to know if there is or not interest in the article, should be enough. If there is, I prefer to go to the original and not use the badly formatted copy in a post.
Copyright protects not to the idea in the article but it’s expression. You can paraphrase and explain all you want as long as they are your words! Disclosing TMF recommendations is a different matter covered by the ToS.
Denny Schlesinger
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