Copyright Basics FAQ

Getting Permission To Publish

10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained

 

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Getting Permission to Publish: Ten Tips for Webmasters
from the folks at www.nolo.com

Think you can use someone else's work on your web site without a licensing agreement? Think again.


The Internet has made it possible for anyone with a computer and modem to become a Web publisher. But even though technology has made information more accessible to everyone, copyright and trademark laws still apply to Web publishing and web sites are common targets for infringement lawsuits. Here are some tips that can help you avoid legal trouble when you want to use someone else's work on your web site.


1. Assume It's Protected It is wise to operate under the assumption all material is protected by either copyright or trademark law unless you have good reason to know that it is not. Reproducing someone's copyrighted work or trademark without their permission is known as infringement, and it leaves you vulnerable to lawsuits from the copyright or trademark owner. Lawsuits are even more likely if you stand to make any money off the use, such as unauthorized posting of copyrighted song lyrics on your site to increase traffic and attract advertisers. Uses like this are likely to bring record companies knocking.
As a general rule, any original work -- whether text, visual art, photos or music -- is protected by copyright law, which means that you may not reproduce it without permission from the copyright owner. It doesn't matter if you indicate who the copyright owner is; you're not allowed to reprint (or distribute, adapt, perform or sell) the work without the owner's authorization.
Similarly, permission is often needed to reproduce a trademark, including any word, symbol or device that identifies and distinguishes a product or service -- such as the word "McDonald's," the distinctive yellow arches, or the Ronald McDonald character. If your use of a trademark is likely to confuse customers, then chances are it would be an infringement. But even if customers aren't likely to be confused -- such as using the name McDonald's for your tax preparation service -- owners of famous trademarks often guard their trademarks aggressively, so it's best to play it safe and pick a different name.
You may not freely use someone else's work simply because it has been posted on the Internet (a popular fallacy) or because it lacks a copyright or trademark notice (another fallacy). Whether you find the material online or off, permission is generally needed to reproduce text, artwork, photos and music.


2. Read Click-Wrap Agreements Many companies offer artwork, photos and other materials for reuse, alternately called clip art, royalty-free work, copyright-free work, shareware or freeware. Do not assume that these materials can be distributed or copied without limitation. Read the terms and conditions in the "click to accept" agreement or "read.me" files that usually accompany such materials to be certain that your intended use is permitted. One company failed to honor the terms of a click-wrap agreement and was found liable for illegally distributing three volumes of software clip art.


3. When In Doubt, Seek Permission Many webmasters manage personal web sites or small organization sites -- for example, a site for a school tennis team. Do copyright laws apply to these small or personal uses? For example, is permission needed to reproduce a photo taken by a club member, a friend or a relative? The short answer is: "Legally, yes, practically, maybe." Copyright protection extends to any original work regardless of who created it, and permission is required for reproduction, display or distribution of the work. Getting explicit permission from the copyright owner is the best way to avoid a lawsuit. If the webmaster is confident that the copyright owner has consented to the use, particularly if the copyright owner is a friend or relative, the concern over a lawsuit diminishes, as does the need for a formal written permission agreement. An oral consent is valid, although some sort of written consent (even an E-mail) is preferable because it will be easier to prove if a dispute arises.


4. Know Your Site Statistics Copyright issues on the Web are constantly evolving and the fees for permissions are often arbitrary. Fees can range from $50 to several thousand dollars depending on the use and the site. A licensing fee may be based on the number of hits per page, number of visits, or the location of the page within the web site -- for example, the homepage versus an archived page. Sometimes the fee depends on whether the site is informational (for example, a medical site sponsored by a nonprofit university) or commercial (say, a medical site sponsored by a pharmaceutical company). Know your web site facts before seeking permission.


5. Pay Less You can save money on fees by keeping your requests as narrow as possible. For example, don't ask for "worldwide rights, all languages" if you only need English. And you can sometimes save money by acquiring multiple items from one source. In some cases, you may also be able to lower your fees by offering to pay up front instead of waiting 30 or 60 days.


6. Watch Your Links, Frames and Inlining Web technology has created a number of novel ways to present information. Linking, framing and inlining are common methods of connecting to the information at other web sites, and all carry the potential for getting into permissions trouble. Here's a brief description of each of these methods and what to watch out for.
Most of us are familiar with clicking on a link to go to another web site. Common as links are, including them at your site isn't 100% risk-free. Deep links in particular can be problematic. A deep link to another site bypasses its homepage and takes the user directly to an internal page. This practice angers some web site owners who do not want visitors to bypass information and advertisements at the home page. In 1997, Ticketmaster sued Microsoft over deep links to Ticketmaster's ordering forms. The case has not yet been resolved, but it points to the need for care in this area.
Framing is the process of dividing a Web page into separate framed regions and displaying the contents of someone else's site within a frame at your site. Generally speaking, site owners don't like having their content framed at another site, particularly without permission. At least one court has considered framing to be a copyright infringement, and in another case, CNN sued a news web site that framed CNN news content. Under the terms of a settlement agreement, the news web site agreed to stop framing and instead use text-only links.
Inlining (sometimes referred to as "mirroring") is similar to framing, and involves the process of incorporating a graphic file from one web site onto another web site. United Media, the copyright owner of the Dilbert comic strip, pressured a computer user into halting daily inlining of daily comic strips taken from the United Media web site.
Not all forms of linking, framing or inlining are illegal. As a general rule, legal claims are most likely to arise if copyrighted material is modified or if customers are confused about the association between the two sites or the source of a product or service.


7. Don't Count on Fair Use: It's Not Always Fair Fair use is a copyright doctrine based upon the principle that the public should be entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted material for purposes of commentary, criticism or parody. In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and "transformative" purpose such as to review a text or make fun of a pop song. For example, if you wish to write a review of a novel, it would be considered fair use to quote a portion of the novelist's work without asking permission.
The difficulty in claiming fair use is that there is no predictable way to guarantee that your use will actually qualify as a fair use. Millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no "definites," only general rules and varying court decisions. That's because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition too narrowly. They wanted it -- like free speech -- to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation. You may believe that your use qualifies -- but if the copyright owner disagrees, you may have to resolve the dispute in a courtroom. Even if you ultimately persuade the court that your use was fair, the expense and time involved in litigation may well outweigh any benefit of using the material in the first place.


8. Remove Unauthorized Material If someone complains that you are using material on your web site without proper authorization, you should immediately remove that material. In the case of unauthorized uploads, downloads or links, you should disable access to the offending material or link. This is not to imply that you should cave into every complaint, but you should remove the material while you investigate the claim and, if necessary, talk to a lawyer. Courts often respond favorably to attempts to "contain" the damage. On the other hand, continuing to use material after being notified that you are violating someone else's rights may aggravate the claim and increase your chances of having to pay money to the owner of the work.
Removing infringing material is an element of a 1998 law establishing that an Internet Service Provider (ISP, the company that hosts the web site on its computer server) can avoid liability by following certain rules including speedy removal of the offending material. You can view or download the text of this law at the U.S. Copyright Office's web site: http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/. Click on "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act" and review Title II.


9. Disclaimers May Help A disclaimer is a statement denying an endorsement of or affiliation with another site or company. For instance, if your web site posts reviews of software and offers links to resellers, you might post a disclaimer in a visible place on your site to the effect that your site does not endorse and is not affiliated with any of the software manufacturers or resellers listed at your site. A disclaimer is not a cure-all for infringement but if a disclaimer is prominently displayed and clearly written, a court may take it into consideration as a factor that limits damages in the event of a lawsuit. For example, in a case involving a dispute between two web sites for restaurants named Blue Note, one factor that helped the lesser-known restaurant avoid financial liability was a prominently displayed disclaimer stating that it was not affiliated with the more famous restaurant.


10. Bookmark Collectives The most useful sources for permission information are copyright collectives or clearinghouses. These are organizations that organize and license works by their members. For example, the Copyright Clearinghouse (http://www.copyright.com) and icopyright(http://www.icopyright.com) provide permissions for written materials. BMI(http://www.bmi.com) and ASCAP(http://www.ascap.com) provide permission for musical performances. National Music Publishers' Association(http://www.nmpa.org) provides permission to reproduce songs. Corbis(http://www.corbis.com) and Time, Inc.(http://www.thepicturecollection.com) are among several collectives that grant permission to use photographs. Art Resource(http://www.artres.com) and the Visual Artists and Galleries Association (web site under construction) grant permission for famous artwork. The Cartoonbank(http://www.cartoonbank.com) is one of several collectives that licenses cartoons. Even if you don't license from these sources, you can often find valuable research information in the event you need to speak with a songwriter, artist or photographer.

Copyright Basics FAQ from the folks at www.nolo.com

What types of creative work does copyright protect?
Copyright protects works such as poetry, movies, CD-ROMs, video games, videos, plays, paintings, sheet music, recorded music performances, novels, software code, sculptures, photographs, choreography and architectural designs.


To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." This means that the work must exist in some physical form for at least some period of time, no matter how brief. Virtually any form of expression will qualify as a tangible medium, including a computer's random access memory (RAM), the recording media that capture all radio and television broadcasts, and the scribbled notes on the back of an envelope that contain the basis for an impromptu speech.
In addition, the work must be original -- that is, independently created by the author. It doesn't matter if an author's creation is similar to existing works, or even if it is arguably lacking in quality, ingenuity or aesthetic merit. So long as the author toils without copying from someone else, the results are protected by copyright.


Finally, to receive copyright protection, a work must be the result of at least some creative effort on the part of its author. There is no hard and fast rule as to how much creativity is enough. As one example, a work must be more creative than a telephone book's white pages, which involve a straightforward alphabetical listing of telephone numbers rather than a creative selection of listings.


Does copyright protect an author's creative ideas?
No. Copyright shelters only fixed, original and creative expression, not the ideas or facts upon which the expression is based. For example, copyright may protect a particular song, novel or computer game about a romance in space, but it cannot protect the underlying idea of having a love affair among the stars. Allowing authors to monopolize their ideas would thwart the underlying purpose of copyright law, which is to encourage people to create new work.


For similar reasons, copyright does not protect facts -- whether scientific, historical, biographical or news of the day. Any facts that an author discovers in the course of research are in the public domain, free to all. For instance, anyone is free to use information included in a book about how the brain works, an article about the life and times of Neanderthals or a TV documentary about the childhood of President Clinton -- provided that that they express the information in their own words.
Facts are not protected even if the author spends considerable time and effort discovering things that were previously unknown. For example, the author of the book on Neanderthals takes ten years to gather all the necessary materials and information for her work. At great expense, she travels to hundreds of museums and excavations around the world. But after the book is published, any reader is free to use the results of this ten year research project to write his or her own book on Neanderthals -- without paying the original author.


How long does a copyright last?
For works published after 1977, the copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. However, if the work is a work for hire (that is, the work is done in the course of employment or has been specifically commissioned) or is published anonymously or under a pseudonym, the copyright lasts between 95 and 120 years, depending on the date the work is published.
All works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain. Works published after 1922, but before 1978 are protected for 95 years from the date of publication. If the work was created, but not published, before 1978, the copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. However, even if the author died over 70 years ago, the copyright in an unpublished work lasts until December 31, 2002. And if such a work is published before December 31, 2002, the copyright will last until December 31, 2047.


Is the Work Published?
In the complicated scheme of copyright laws, which law applies to a particular work depends on when that work is published. A work is considered published when the author makes it available to the public on an unrestricted basis. This means that it is possible to distribute or display a work without publishing it if there are significant restrictions placed on what can be done with the work and when it can be shown to others. For example, Andres Miczslova writes an essay called "Blood Bath" about the war in Bosnia, and distributes it to five human rights organizations under a non-exclusive license that places restrictions on their right to disclose the essay's contents. "Blood Bath" has not been "published" in the copyright sense. If Miczslova authorizes posting of the essay on the Internet, however, it would likely be considered published.

10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained An attempt to answer common myths about copyright seen on the net and cover issues related to copyright and USENET/Internet publication.- by Brad Templeton

Note that this is an essay about copyright myths. It assumes you know at least what copyright is -- basically the legal exclusive right of the author of a creative work to control the copying of that work. If you didn't know that, check out my own brief introduction to copyright for more information. Feel free to link to this document, no need to ask me. Really, NO need to ask.

1) "If it doesn't have a copyright notice, it's not copyrighted."
This was true in the past, but today almost all major nations follow the Berne copyright convention. For example, in the USA, almost everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not. The default you should assume for other people's works is that they are copyrighted and may not be copied unless you know otherwise. There are some old works that lost protection without notice, but frankly you should not risk it unless you know for sure.
It is true that a notice strengthens the protection, by warning people, and by allowing one to get more and different damages, but it is not necessary. If it looks copyrighted, you should assume it is. This applies to pictures, too. You may not scan pictures from magazines and post them to the net, and if you come upon something unknown, you shouldn't post that either.

The correct form for a notice is:

"Copyright [dates] by [author/owner]"
You can use C in a circle © instead of "Copyright" but "(C)" has never been given legal force. The phrase "All Rights Reserved" used to be required in some nations but is now not legally needed most places. In some countries it may help preserve some of the "moral rights."

2) "If I don't charge for it, it's not a violation."
False. Whether you charge can affect the damages awarded in court, but that's main difference under the law. It's still a violation if you give it away -- and there can still be serious damages if you hurt the commercial value of the property. There is an exception for personal copying of music, which is not a violation, though courts seem to have said that doesn't include wide scale anonymous personal copying as Napster. If the work has no commercial value, the violation is mostly technical and is unlikely to result in legal action. Fair use determinations (see below) do sometimes depend on the involvement of money.

3) "If it's posted to Usenet it's in the public domain."
False. Nothing modern is in the public domain anymore unless the owner explicitly puts it in the public domain(*). Explicitly, as in you have a note from the author/owner saying, "I grant this to the public domain." Those exact words or words very much like them.
Some argue that posting to Usenet implicitly grants permission to everybody to copy the posting within fairly wide bounds, and others feel that Usenet is an automatic store and forward network where all the thousands of copies made are done at the command (rather than the consent) of the poster. This is a matter of some debate, but even if the former is true (and in this writer's opinion we should all pray it isn't true) it simply would suggest posters are implicitly granting permissions "for the sort of copying one might expect when one posts to Usenet" and in no case is this a placement of material into the public domain. It is important to remember that when it comes to the law, computers never make copies, only human beings make copies. Computers are given commands, not permission. Only people can be given permission. Furthermore it is very difficult for an implicit license to supersede an explicitly stated license that the copier was aware of.

Note that all this assumes the poster had the right to post the item in the first place. If the poster didn't, then all the copies are pirated, and no implied license or theoretical reduction of the copyright can take place.

(*) Copyrights can expire after a long time, putting something into the public domain, and there are some fine points on this issue regarding older copyright law versions. However, none of this applies to an original article posted to USENET.

Note that granting something to the public domain is a complete abandonment of all rights. You can't make something "PD for non-commercial use." If your work is PD, other people can even modify one byte and put their name on it.

4) "My posting was just fair use!"
See other notes on fair use for a detailed answer, but bear the following in mind:
The "fair use" exemption to (U.S.) copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn't find time to write your own story, or didn't want your readers to have to register at the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair use, the others probably aren't.

Fair use is usually a short excerpt and almost always attributed. (One should not use more of the work than is necessary to make the commentary.) It should not harm the commercial value of the work -- in the sense of people no longer needing to buy it (which is another reason why reproduction of the entire work is a problem.)

Note that most inclusion of text in Usenet follow-ups is for commentary and reply, and it doesn't damage the commercial value of the original posting (if it has any) and as such it is fair use. Fair use isn't an exact doctrine, either. The court decides if the right to comment overrides the copyright on an individual basis in each case. There have been cases that go beyond the bounds of what I say above, but in general they don't apply to the typical net misclaim of fair use.

The "fair use" concept varies from country to country, and has different names (such as "fair dealing" in Canada) and other limitations outside the USA.

Facts and ideas can't be copyrighted, but their expression and structure can. You can always write the facts in your own words.

See the DMCA alert for recent changes in the law.

5) "If you don't defend your copyright you lose it." -- "Somebody has that name copyrighted!"
False. Copyright is effectively never lost these days, unless explicitly given away. You also can't "copyright a name" or anything short like that, such as almost all titles. You may be thinking of trade marks, which apply to names, and can be weakened or lost if not defended.
You generally trademark terms by using them to refer to your brand of a generic type of product or service. Like an "Apple" computer. Apple Computer "owns" that word applied to computers, even though it is also an ordinary word. Apple Records owns it when applied to music. Neither owns the word on its own, only in context, and owning a mark doesn't mean complete control -- see a more detailed treatise on this law for details.

You can't use somebody else's trademark in a way that would steal the value of the mark, or in a way that might make people confuse you with the real owner of the mark, or which might allow you to profit from the mark's good name. For example, if I were giving advice on music videos, I would be very wary of trying to label my works with a name like "mtv." :-) You can use marks to criticize or parody the holder, as long as it's clear you aren't the holder.

6) "If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me."
False. U.S. Copyright law is quite explicit that the making of what are called "derivative works" -- works based or derived from another copyrighted work -- is the exclusive province of the owner of the original work. This is true even though the making of these new works is a highly creative process. If you write a story using settings or characters from somebody else's work, you need that author's permission.
Yes, that means almost all "fan fiction" is arguably a copyright violation. If you want to write a story about Jim Kirk and Mr. Spock, you need Paramount's permission, plain and simple. Now, as it turns out, many, but not all holders of popular copyrights turn a blind eye to "fan fiction" or even subtly encourage it because it helps them. Make no mistake, however, that it is entirely up to them whether to do that.

There is a major exception -- criticism and parody. The fair use provision says that if you want to make fun of something like Star Trek, you don't need their permission to include Mr. Spock. This is not a loophole; you can't just take a non-parody and claim it is one on a technicality. The way "fair use" works is you get sued for copyright infringement, and you admit you did copy, but that your copying was a fair use. A subjective judgment on, among other things, your goals, is then made.

However, it's also worth noting that a court has never ruled on this issue, because fan fiction cases always get settled quickly when the defendant is a fan of limited means sued by a powerful publishing company. Some argue that completely non-commercial fan fiction might be declared a fair use if courts get to decide. You can read more

7) "They can't get me, defendants in court have powerful rights!"
Copyright law is mostly civil law. If you violate copyright you would usually get sued, not be charged with a crime. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a principle of criminal law, as is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt." Sorry, but in copyright suits, these don't apply the same way or at all. It's mostly which side and set of evidence the judge or jury accepts or believes more, though the rules vary based on the type of infringement. In civil cases you can even be made to testify against your own interests.

8) "Oh, so copyright violation isn't a crime or anything?"
Actually, recently in the USA commercial copyright violation involving more than 10 copies and value over $2500 was made a felony. So watch out. (At least you get the protections of criminal law.) On the other hand, don't think you're going to get people thrown in jail for posting your E-mail. The courts have much better things to do. This is a fairly new, untested statute. In one case an operator of a pirate BBS that didn't charge was acquitted because he didn't charge, but congress amended the law to cover that.

9) "It doesn't hurt anybody -- in fact it's free advertising."
It's up to the owner to decide if they want the free ads or not. If they want them, they will be sure to contact you. Don't rationalize whether it hurts the owner or not, ask them. Usually that's not too hard to do. Time past, ClariNet published the very funny Dave Barry column to a large and appreciative Usenet audience for a fee, but some person didn't ask, and forwarded it to a mailing list, got caught, and the newspaper chain that employs Dave Barry pulled the column from the net, pissing off everybody who enjoyed it. Even if you can't think of how the author or owner gets hurt, think about the fact that piracy on the net hurts everybody who wants a chance to use this wonderful new technology to do more than read other people's flame wars.

10) "They e-mailed me a copy, so I can post it."
To have a copy is not to have the copyright. All the E-mail you write is copyrighted. However, E-mail is not, unless previously agreed, secret. So you can certainly report on what E-mail you are sent, and reveal what it says. You can even quote parts of it to demonstrate. Frankly, somebody who sues over an ordinary message would almost surely get no damages, because the message has no commercial value, but if you want to stay strictly in the law, you should ask first. On the other hand, don't go nuts if somebody posts E-mail you sent them. If it was an ordinary non-secret personal letter of minimal commercial value with no copyright notice (like 99.9% of all E-mail), you probably won't get any damages if you sue them. Note as well that, the law aside, keeping private correspondence private is a courtesy one should usually honor.

11)"So I can't ever reproduce anything?"
Myth #11 (I didn't want to change the now-famous title of this article) is actually one sometimes generated in response to this list of 10 myths. No, copyright isn't an iron-clad lock on what can be published. Indeed, by many arguments, by providing reward to authors, it encourages them to not just allow, but fund the publication and distribution of works so that they reach far more people than they would if they were free or unprotected -- and unpromoted. However, it must be remembered that copyright has two main purposes, namely the protection of the author's right to obtain commercial benefit from valuable work, and more recently the protection of the author's general right to control how a work is used.
While copyright law makes it technically illegal to reproduce almost any new creative work (other than under fair use) without permission, if the work is unregistered and has no real commercial value, it gets very little protection. The author in this case can sue for an injunction against the publication, actual damages from a violation, and possibly court costs. Actual damages means actual money potentially lost by the author due to publication, plus any money gained by the defendant. But if a work has no commercial value, such as a typical E-mail message or conversational USENET posting, the actual damages will be zero. Only the most vindictive (and rich) author would sue when no damages are possible, and the courts don't look kindly on vindictive plaintiffs, unless the defendants are even more vindictive.

The author's right to control what is done with a work, however, has some validity, even if it has no commercial value. If you feel you need to violate a copyright "because you can get away with it because the work has no value" you should ask yourself why you're doing it. In general, respecting the rights of creators to control their creations is a principle many advocate adhering to.

In addition, while more often than not people claim a "fair use" copying incorrectly, fair use is a valid concept necessary to allow the criticism of copyrighted works and their creators through examples. But please read more about it before you do it.

In Summary
These days, almost all things are copyrighted the moment they are written, and no copyright notice is required.
Copyright is still violated whether you charged money or not, only damages are affected by that.
Postings to the net are not granted to the public domain, and don't grant you any permission to do further copying except perhaps the sort of copying the poster might have expected in the ordinary flow of the net.
Fair use is a complex doctrine meant to allow certain valuable social purposes. Ask yourself why you are republishing what you are posting and why you couldn't have just rewritten it in your own words.
Copyright is not lost because you don't defend it; that's a concept from trademark law. The ownership of names is also from trademark law, so don't say somebody has a name copyrighted.
Fan fiction and other work derived from copyrighted works is a copyright violation.
Copyright law is mostly civil law where the special rights of criminal defendants you hear so much about don't apply. Watch out, however, as new laws are moving copyright violation into the criminal realm.
Don't rationalize that you are helping the copyright holder; often it's not that hard to ask permission.
Posting E-mail is technically a violation, but revealing facts from E-mail you got isn't, and for almost all typical E-mail, nobody could wring any damages from you for posting it. The law doesn't do much to protect works with no commercial value.


DMCA Alert!
Copyright law was recently amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which changed net copyright in many ways. In particular, it put all sorts of legal strength behind copy-protection systems, making programs illegal and reducing the reality of fair use rights.

The DMCA also changed the liability outlook for ISPs in major ways, many of them quite troublesome.

Linking
Might it be a violation just to link to a web page? That's not a myth, it's undecided, but I have written some discussion of linking rights issues.

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Permission is granted to freely print, unmodified, up to 100 copies of the most up to date version of this document from http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html, or to copy it in off-the-net electronic form. On the net/WWW, however, you must link here rather than put up your own page. If you had not seen a notice like this on the document, you would have to assume you did not have permission to copy it. This document is still protected by you-know-what even though it has no copyright notice. Please don't send mail asking me if you can link here -- you can do so, without asking or telling me. The only people I prefer not link here are those who mail me asking for permission to link.

It should be noted that the author, as publisher of an electronic newspaper on the net, makes his living by publishing copyrighted material in electronic form and has the associated biases. However, DO NOT E-MAIL HIM FOR LEGAL ADVICE; for that use other resources or consult a lawyer. By the way, did I mention: do not e-mail me for legal advice? Also note that while many of these principles are universal in Berne copyright signatory nations, some are derived from U.S. law, and in some cases Canadian law. This document is provided to clear up some common misconceptions about intellectual property law that are often seen on the net. It is not intended to be a complete treatise on all the nuances of the subject. Terry Carroll's copyright FAQ is currently offline but here is an old one, covering other issues including compilation copyright and more intricacies of fair use is available in the same places you found this note. Also consider the U.S. Library of Congress copyright site. Australians try this. This site has Canadian Copyright Info. Another useful document is the EFF's IP law primer. I should also mention sorry, but please do not e-mail me your copyright questions.