The Lake County News Chronicle, or some person or persons associated with it or supportive of it, have reportedly sent a few complaining emails to TwoHarborsNews.com over the last few days. I haven’t verified this information, but it sounds familiar. 1/9/2010: Update/Clarification: The information in the first sentence came from a post on the Two Harbors News facebook page stating that they had received “nasty emails from ‘family members’ of the Chronicle.” Per Mike Creger (LCNC Editor), no one from the Chronicle sent any emails. Mike acknowledges that they have had some issues with that site, but he is dealing with those in a more personal, courteous and civil way. I had my own experience with a Chronicle representative a few months ago. The folks at the Chronicle are free to dislike bloggers using some of their material, but in most cases they probably don’t have much of a legal leg to stand on. How much is too much? Just right?
When you think about it, it’s understandable that a publication would want to guard their information. It’s the information that brings people to their site, and once there, they may click on a link for advertising, or they may even (gasp!) subscribe to the print edition or to a premium service or version of the on-line publication. So when a blogger or social media user grabs a significant chunk of a story, the blog reader has no reason to visit the source site.
All of these goings-on sent me searching for some answers. The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) is an excellent source of information on the topic. The gist of the subject is that copying snippets of copyrighted material for the purpose of commentary, parody, criticism or discussion is considered fair use of the copyrighted material, even more so when the information is properly credited and linked back to the originator.
The Chronicle was right to complain to me about a complete article that was copied and pasted to this site by a user. I immediately removed the post and replaced the article with a link to the actual article on the Chronicle site. I have monitored this sort of thing more closely since then. In my opinion and with my very limited experience, it would seem that the few lines from the Chronicle posted on Facebook by TwoHarborsNews look like fair use of the material. If there’s more complete copying, that may be another story (pun intended).
The EFF states very clearly on their website that bloggers should seek legal counsel for their specific situations and I would add that as my disclaimer as well.
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Good read, well said
A website has a facebook page? Why? I just don’t get it. I guess I will be the last person on this planet to have, get, or do a facebook page. Next I suppose would be a web log about the facebook page about the website. It gets ridiculouser and ridiculouser.
All part of spreading the good word Tom. And yes, it is sometimes a very tangled web that we weave.