[Imc-newsroom] question about postings

[Mike Lehman]

Repostings of stories from other media is a tricky question, because of
the vast grey area that exists on the internet with copyright law.
Generally, it is considered "fair use" if a link to the source is used,
rather than a deep link to a specific source article. Commondreams uses
this approach and uses this language:

"FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of
which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this
constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided
for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If
you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your
own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner."

Everyone seems to have a different take on exactly what constitutes
"fair use". My own opinion is that a link back to the source itself, not
to the exact article (or "deep-linked") is generally viewed as a way to
give credit where due, along with a way for readers to explore the
source as a whole, which tends to defuse accusations of unfair use,
because it is essentially a small, but acceptable, bit of advertising
for the source itself. Also, many times deep links become inoperative
after a few days as sites are updated. Having a link to the mainpage of
a source will continue to work after a link to a specific story
disappears. Other opinions on this sibject may differ.

In any case, anyone can post of the UCIMC website and we have no control
over what approach they take to this problem. I've seen it all,
including use of links to a specific story (which may expire quickly, as
I noted above) and no link at all, just the story (which obviously came
from elsewhere.)

Whatever approach you feel comfortable with when posting such material
should ALWAYS include notice that it is copyrighted material, so that
readers won't be misled into using it for other than fair use purposes.

Of course, as a grassroots media outlet, we always hope that users of
the website will write their own stories in preference to excessive
reposting of material from other media outlets, particularly the
dominant media (although there exists an understanding of the need for
some reposting so that readers can be informed of important and relevant
stories they may otherwise not be aware of.) In the near future, we hope
to update our software so that we can have a seperate Newswire for local
news, so that repostings don't push locally produced content of the
Newswire so fast (which is an irritation at times with our Open
Publishing format.)

My 2 cents,
Mike Lehman

jplanet10 wrote:
> 
> just started reading your website regularly.  i'm wondering why, when
> stories are posted from [or quoting] other media sources, you don't
> include a link to the original story?