Some of you may recall my post “Blog Lists – Content Theft and Copyright Infringement.” In that post I spoke of how Lorelle VanFossen recently had her list copied and I cited an informative article by Lorelle entitled “I love your list! I’m going to copy it,” which takes a look at bloggers copying lists from other bloggers.
One blogger has pointed out that I did not check my facts and they state that lists are not copyright protected. They refer to copyright.gov pointing out the section of the website that reads:
“What Is Not Protected by Copyright? … Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources).”
Lorelle VanFossen had this to say about that:
“Lists within articles are not covered by this because they are 1) Not ingredients, 2) not a table of contents or list of contents, and 3) not from public documents. The lists are from articles which are covered by their own copyright policy. Copyrighted documents are not “public,” according to lawyers I’ve discussed this with in the past.
The lists discussed here refer to government documents that say X numbers of people murdered across X states – that kind of thing. Those are public documents.
The key part is “consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship”.
My content is copyrighted, I’m the original author, and my content is not common property.”
I think that pretty much sums things up. A set of links arranged into a compilation, is protected by copyright.
Any thoughts?
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Rose DesRochersRose wears many hats. She's a wife, mother, respite worker, proud shih-tzu owner, blogger, published poet, freelance writer, as well as the owner and administrator of Today's Writing Community and Blogger Talk Blog Community. Feel free to contact her with any questions you may have.Rose DesRochers has 1116 post(s) at Rose DesRochers – World Outside My Window
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3 responses so far ↓
Wrote: Aug 14, 2007 at 11:23 am
So I have a question. Can you copy someone’s list or paraphrase from a book as long as you site your source, where you got it from? I always do so but am still worried about infringing on copyright laws.
Thanks!
Wrote: Aug 14, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Aimee, I would think that would fall under compilation copyrights and may actually be an infringement. Don’t quote me on that though. The grouping of such list is what would be protected.
Wrote: Aug 15, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Aimee, Rose is right. You can use excerpts under the Fair Use aspect of copyright, which is slowly becoming a standard of 10% or 400 words for many blogs (but check their blog’s copyright policy or ask FIRST), but you can’t have the whole thing, including the list.
And thanks, Rose, for clearing this up for so many. It’s an important issue. If we all put all of our energy on creating original content, none of this would be an issue and the world would be a better place, don’t you think?
We need to make the web a “copy-cat free” neighborhood.