Some internet users need a lesson in fair use. Some bloggers believe that copying another website or blogger’s list and then reproducing parts of it or the entire thing on their blog falls under fair use.

Rocky John Tayaban of BloggingMix copied his list “136 Free Links - Submit to Article Directories Now!” from Articlewritingtips.com and then went as far to argue that he was within his rights and that Articlewritingtips.com should acknowledged their sources. That is not the only list he has copied and not properly attributed and requested permission to copy.

That charming lady on Wordpress- Lorelle VanFossen recently had her list “Lists of Your Favorite WordPress Plugins” copied by the administrator of
Bloggeries Blog Forum.

When I brought this to the attention of the forum, Bloggeries moderator Zhuli commented that she saw no problems with Bloggeries copying the list as he only copied a portion of Lorelle’s post and attributed the source.

I emailed Lorelle, who made me aware of her post entitled “I love Your list! I’m going to copy it,” which she recently published on the subject of bloggers copying lists from other bloggers. I just would like to point out that this is another great post by Lorelle.

Lorelle also requested that I reply on Bloggeries Forum on her behalf and direct the staff to her post on “I love Your List! I’m Going to Copy it!”

Bloggeries has now deleted the entitle post from their website, and Rob the administrator has sent me a pm where he states that he was within his rights.

I would just like to point out that this is not the first time that Rob has infringed on copyright.

Rob comments “I do not believe I committed copyright infringement but that is besides the point; you wanted me to edit the post so I did one better and just deleted it in its entirety.”

Lorelle brings up some valuable points in her post. Lorelle states, “Do not copy and paste another blogger’s list because it is a violation of their copyright.”

Remember that the author of the content that you are copying takes the time to research and create a resource of useful links. It is frustrating when a blogger takes that list and passes it off as their own or copies the list without obtaining permission from the author.

One should never assume that such use falls under the fair-use exception. If you find a blog post resourceful, do the right thing and link to that post. A blog or website where a set of links are arranged into a compilation, is copyright protected

For more information about ‘Compilation Copyrights’ please refer to the website of Dan Tysver, a registered patent attorney with Beck & Tysver in Minneapolis, Minnesota.