Daily Kos has two rules about copyright:
- Copying and pasting complete copyrighted articles without permission is absolutely prohibited by site policy. This is a bannable offense.
- Limited copying within the bounds of the doctrine of "fair use" is permitted.
Daily Kos has one glaring inaccuracy in its discussion of copyright, when it claims:
- Copying and pasting complete copyrighted articles without permission is absolutely prohibited by copyright law.
Daily Kos has one rule-of-thumb guideline to help us about copyright:
- A reasonable rule-of-thumb is that copying three paragraphs from a normal-length news article or editorial is acceptable.
Fair use of a work is not an infringment of copyright. 17 USC § 107. The factors that determine whether a use is fair include:
- The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- The nature of the copyrighted work;
- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
This explains why the Daily Kos claim that copying an entire work is prohibited is inaccurate. The portion of the work is only one factor, and that factor is in balance with other factors.
anyone who tells you that a set number of words or percentage of a work is "fair" is talking about guidelines, not the law
Electronic Frontier Foundation, and linked in the Daily Kos FAQ.
Example 1:
A publisher reprints a complete copyrighted short book of poems. Everyone knows that this is an infringement of copyright.
Example 2:
A literary academic critiques the short book of poems in a hefty book. The academic quotes the poems in snippets, repeatedly, throughout the book. Every word in the poems is quoted, at some point. No one* would think that this is an infringement of copyright.
Example 3:
A hacker distributes a file with a copyright protected song. The song is split up in chunks, and interspersed with the text of the United States Constitution. The file comes with a reassembly program. Everyone knows that this is an infringement of copyright, even though it is similar to Example 2.
The difference in the three examples, why 1 and 3 are infringement but 2 is not, can be said to be in both "purpose and character of the use" and "effect of the use upon the potential market."
Example 4:
A Kossack cuts and pastes a complete news article into a diary. The diary contains a brief additional introduction. Most everyone would agree this is infringement of copyright. It is definitely against site policy, and a bannable offense.
Example 5:
A Kossack discusses a news article in a long and substantial diary. The diary has significant intellectual and creative merit. The diary quotes the entirety of the news article, in interspersed blockquotes, and not in the original order. Both the news article and the diary are political content. The method has similarity to the literary academic in Example 2.
Does Example 5 infringe copyright? Or is it fair use instead? What factors apply in deciding?