Fear the Copyright Bear

[Lunar]

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2011 update.  This is all you need to read in this thread

Do not CTRL+C & CTRL+V full articles here, especially without full commentary.  

Use excerpts + a link.

Thanks brah!
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It's something I've done a lot in the past, but Dave has decreed:

We do need to still consider the copyright issue and its an area that needs to be included in the moderation infrastructure.  We have had this conversation in the past.  Verbatim reposting is a violation unless written permission has been obtained from the author.  excerpts quoted plus a link to the original article with proper citation is acceptable.  This is a reform that most posters should build into their habits (yes, it takes more work, but is the proper action to take).

Dave

Not going to give any infractions or anything for the time being, but it's something that I'm going to gradually have to enforce when reported in the coming months.  Sorry.






EDIT:  I've created the Copyright Bear.  He'll be doing my dirty work.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I'm glad your behavior will be modified, Lunar.  About time.

[dead0man]

Let me get up on my high horse here for a moment......

Yeah, I've mentioned this quite a few times, nobody ever seemed to care.

[Lunar]

I mean, everyone hates us enough as it is, this, like profanity, isn't a fight I want to fight, as it will eventually force me to give infractions to good people instead of posters who actually are on a downward trajectory towards actual punishment. 

I shall press down upon the brow of myself this crown of thorns to be crucified upon a cross of gold!

[Lunar]

Let me get up on my high horse here for a moment......

Yeah, I've mentioned this quite a few times, nobody ever seemed to care.

I considered this small site, where a couple news stories may be published a day, to be a whole different animal from a giant news service like Free Republic, a group that actually got in trouble for this.  

Dave's quote in the OP comes as a response to me arguing with another moderator that we shouldn't give infractions for this and such a thing would be unrealistic and antagonistic.

I got shot down like a bullet-ridden clown.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I often wondered why anyone would waste the time. Just put the link in the post. People either read it or they don't. No sense copying the whole article.

[Lunar]

I often wondered why anyone would waste the time. Just put the link in the post. People either read it or they don't. No sense copying the whole article.

Actually, I've found when I just post the link, that people comment based on what they guess the article contains...

[Ban my account ffs!]

I understand this is problematic.  Sometimes I have posted entire letters to the editor or editorials because you have to have a stupid "free membership" in order to read the material, which is totally not conducive to good political discussion.

So the quality of many posts and discussions will decline because of this regulation.. but I have no problem summarizing the entire thing in my own words and telling the copyright to f off.

[Lunar]

It'll be disappointing for me too, as I have paid membership for a number of sites (Crain's, WSJ, Newsday) which I don't endlessly replicate, but, in some circumstances, have found it less than useful to merely post excerpts.   In one post not tooooo long ago, I quoted a whole WSJ article but said "You guys should all subscribe to the WSJ and pay them money, it has the highest distribution of any newspaper in America and what they write matters!" -- so as to avoid the already extremely minimal chance that a copyright claims person would complain, but I will have to cease that as well.

And, of course, NYT requires registration or clearing your cache, but anyone who doesn't have an NYT account is either 15 years old or doesn't care about anything they write

[Associate Justice PiT]

I often wondered why anyone would waste the time. Just put the link in the post. People either read it or they don't. No sense copying the whole article.

Actually, I've found when I just post the link, that people comment based on what they guess the article contains...

     Which actually might not be so bad. It helps separate the folks who bother to seriously read the articles that are posted from the ones who don't, so you know who to pay more attention to in the future.

[Lunar]

I often wondered why anyone would waste the time. Just put the link in the post. People either read it or they don't. No sense copying the whole article.

Actually, I've found when I just post the link, that people comment based on what they guess the article contains...

     Which actually might not be so bad. It helps separate the folks who bother to seriously read the articles that are posted from the ones who don't, so you know who to pay more attention to in the future.

Yeah, it's a trade-off, but it also increases the chances that the thread will die with no comments whatsoever.  The comments of people who don't know what they are talking about can keep a thread alive so people who are interested are able to read it & see it at the top of the board

[Torie]

I have found it entirely unnecessary to copy and paste articles. I just do the link, and then spin them with my little "arresting" commentary. That is just so much more fun anyway. A bonus is that some "ahole" like angus might drop by and claim that  I mis-characterized the article, and then I can fence with the interlocutor  about that, trying to slip the sword into the artery, watching the guy bleed, without him even knowing it ideally. It's a win-win!

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I got shot down like a bullet-ridden clown.

More like a U-2 plane over the Soviet Union. 

In all seriousness, I'd suggest people do what I've been doing lately (yes, I was one of the bad ones who posted whole articles up until a few months ago)... post the first couple of paragraphs and a link to the article.  A small clip from the beginning is covered under fair use, and it gives people an idea about what the article is about.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yes, what Inks mentioned is the standard practice on most big political sites.

I look forward to reporting under this new with how frequently Libertas and CARLHAYDEN violate it.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Yes, what Inks mentioned is the standard practice on most big political sites.

I look forward to reporting under this new with how frequently Libertas and CARLHAYDEN violate it.

How juvenile.


Anyway, Lunar, does this only affect articles from real newspapers and news outlets, or blogs and opinion sites too?

[The Mikado]

Yes, what Inks mentioned is the standard practice on most big political sites.

I look forward to reporting under this new with how frequently Libertas and CARLHAYDEN violate it.

How juvenile.


Anyway, Lunar, does this only affect articles from real newspapers and news outlets, or blogs and opinion sites too?

It totally depends on the site's copyright policy, I believe.  For example, at the bottom of The Daily Kos, it says:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Feel free to post entire posts from a site that has a similar policy as long as you put a link and attribution at the beginning.  However, if the blog in question is serious about enforcing their copyright, treat it like an ordinary newspaper.

[Lunar]

I look forward to reporting under this new with how frequently Libertas and CARLHAYDEN violate it.

I should add -- please do not report such threads yet and if you do they won't result in infractions.  

I'm still sending out warnings to these fiendish criminals [there's been two to date].  Not even asking for the threads to be changed -- just future ones, but that will be the next step.

At some point, if people who have already been warned continue doing it again and again, then there will unfortunately have to be infraction point(s) of some kind to send the message in a more internet-forceful manner [with the end goal of there needing to be less work for me of actually editing such posts], but I hope it won't come to that.  

That said, it will be definitively a weird experience when I'll have to PM CARL about this.

[Lunar]

You can report these threads now [everybody is anyway, I've been getting a steady stream of reports from our vigilante forum members who have been ignoring this thread].

Everybody gets one PM warning.   I'm not sure what I will do after that quite yet, but it won' be particularly fun for me to fight this fight in the trenches, so please, please make my life easier by doing this

[Sewer]

Respect Copyright? Never!!!

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Copyright is a sick joke. It is nothing short of theft.

Thanks again, government!

[k-onmmunist]

Copyright is a sick joke. It is nothing short of theft.

Thanks again, government!

If it weren't for the government, you would be a serf so be grateful.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Well, regardless of everybody's opinions of copyrights, it's the law, and since Dave (and 99.99% of America) doesn't like getting sued, the mods are going to start enforcing this.

[Lunar]

I think the entire system is set up to make Lunar the bad guy to browbeat the forum community, through this board, into submission regarding rules he disagrees with.  I had to sticky a thread and rough up some innocent bystanders over profanity not too long ago.  And now this.

It's Good Cop/Bad Cop, I tell you.  People like Bacon King get to beat me in the polls, but that's because I don't moderate some wussy forum, as a police officer I have to deal with the cartels and crack dealers, I'm forced to live in the real world, not some fantasy "What-If" hypothetical world.

[Lunar]

Respect Copyright? Never!!!

Meh. If anyone thinks I enjoy spending my time being the copyright nanny, they are severely, severely, severely mistaken.  It's painful, awkward, time-consuming, and silly for me.  I'm not asking people to use excerpts and links out of a sense of justice for the world, I'm asking them to  do this our of pity for me.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Respect Copyright? Never!!!

Meh. If anyone thinks I enjoy spending my time being the copyright nanny, they are severely, severely, severely mistaken.  It's painful, awkward, and silly for me.

Do you support IP in general?