Forum Moderators: not2easy
There are many useful websites currently that have userful forum post and information that I often like to include, or inspire for me to write an article about.
I am fully aware that scrapping is unethical and do not plan on simply taking someones comments and posting them as mine.
I have the following questions
1) Is it ok to take except from a fourm post
a) If I link to the original forum thread
b) Give credit to the original owner and notify him of the article
2) Use adsense on these pages.
An example of such an article I would host would be:
Headline: Free Sample Products to Potential Customers?
my own writing: " I have noticed an increasingly rise in customers asking for free samples of products that we sell. Most of our customers are silicon case inquires and wish for us to send a free sample of 1-5 pieces. Most of the time, this only cost $1/production fee, but it is hard to know if the customer is trying to squeeze free products from them to resell on a small level, or become a potential long term client.
Usually, I will find out if the customer is who he says he is. If he is a large firm or registered company that I can verify, I might give him a free sample and make him pay for the shipping. If I have done lots of business with them in the past and they have made me a profit, I will sent them some free samples and pay for the shipping.
I think if you practice due diligence and find out exactly who your customer is, you stand a good chance of having a gut feeling of the best options for giving out a free sample. Always remember, scammers are rampid and if you give out free samples, many will take advantage of the situation and if they do this to many companies, it is possible they could build a house and retire off of companies free samples."
----
and then I add a post from a trade forum website that is about 3-4 sentences about his comment on why he gives out free samples
of course in each case I would:
- notify the member I have used his comment from the other website
-link to his website or contact info if he has one listed
- give full credit to the website form name on my page
On other articles, it might mostly someone elses remark that made me interested in writing to my users or, and work a poll around his comment.
My website will not be centered around form post, but I occasionally am sparked to write about them.
1) Is it ok to add this content in my articles
a) If I write an entire article around someones post on another fourm and give credit
b) Notify the user that I wish to use his comments on my site, in which I will have little to say about the discussion
c) Use adsense on these sites
d) Legal to use if I do not use adsense on these sites.
Thanks and sorry for and rambling, I have been up for 2 straight days working. I will get to inspect 10,000 Nintendo Wii's tomorrow :)
Just write your own content. It "sounds" like you want to base the majority of your site on someone else's work.
Then develop your strategy.
FarmBoy
I think in addition to studying the material at the USPTO regarding fair use, you should also talk to an attorney about click-wrap/online licenses. Sites that you draw these quotes from may have Terms of Use posted which may prohibit any reproduction whatsoever. These licenses may or may not be valid, and it's something to explore with your attorney.
Of course, the site's Terms of Use may also specify that you CAN use quotes, and may spell-out their precise requirements. So they are worthwhile to look at in any case. Even if they are not valid, do you really want to draw quotes from a site that looks like they might get nasty about it?
It wouldn't take any more effort to contact the author and ask permission to use their material before using it than it would to notify them afterward. If you get permission first, you don't have to worry about whether you'll have to take the article down later. And if you're denied permission, you can go on to the next project without wasting time on an article that's going to have to be removed, anyway, after you notify the author about it.
And if you're going to be contacting the author, anyway, you could make things more interesting - and original - if instead of using the post as is, you use it as a jumping off point: "I found your post on free samples to be very interesting. I'd like to share your thoughts with my readers. Would you be willing to make some comments that I could publish on my website, attributed to you?" ...or something like that. Who knows - you might get an entire article out of it.
You ask about two very different things:
Using excerpts of someone else's writing: Fair use involves a number of things, one of which is the amount of material you use based on the overall length of the work. "Three or four sentences" out of even a very long forum post would be a high percentage of the entire work - much different from using the same amount from a 400-page book in a book review. But if you get permission, you don't need to worry about meeting fair use requirements.
Being inspired by what someone else has written: We'd all be in trouble if we couldn't do that! But it doesn't have to involve copying their material. I'm going to put a very strong "I am not a lawyer" on this next idea, but it would seem to me that referring to a forum post as an example, or quoting an especially well-worded phrase when you're writing about the same subject, would be allowable, as long as the vast majority of the material is your own commentary.
[edited by: Beagle at 9:37 pm (utc) on Oct. 18, 2007]
