On copyright...

[nadinbrzezinski]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by MineralMan (a host of the General Discussion forum).

if you folks are going to actually enforce a general copyright rule (which I have never seen enforced so this kind of situational enforcement was cute), first you need to learn about copyright.

Everything you touch on the web is copyrighted. Hell, everything you post is, for 75 years or your lifetime, whichever is shorter. So you may as well use the copyright mark under every one of your posts to remind other posters of that little factoid. When we started RSD we actually sat on a few seminars on the subject by the way, Why? Well not only are we producing copyrighted material every time we post an article, but we knew we were going to be linking to somebody else's material like almost every day.

There are two major types of copyrights (and a slew of others, but this should be sufficient for general knowledge)... what I like to call the defended and enforced ones and the open source\ commons. And if you sell anything to a physical magazine these days, insist on selling not just first north american print rights, but also electronic and anything else that might rise in the future of the universe That comes from a not so famous case (it is famous among nerds) between Paizo publishing house and a bunch of freelancers. When they published in a CD Rom the whole of Dragon Magazine going back to 1979 the writers who sold them material in the 1980s sued them, for royalties. To make a long story short Paizo lost. Instead of paying royalties (They had to for the few CD Roms that were sold) they pulled the product. I actually have a copy somewhere, I was one of the lucky ones to buy it. I doubt my current computer could read it though.

And that line about the universe is one of the formulas used these days.

To the list in question:

It is quoted in full here

http://www.ellensplace.net/fascism.html

Here

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm (with expansions)

Here

http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

and here, and actually a better copy since it uses Britt's introduction

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4113.htm

And many times on Democratic Underground over the years, as well as multiple other sites... before and after the lawsuit.

Suffice it to say, that list has been quoted in full at a few sites for a few years, The home magazine, Free Enquiry, which is a paper magazine, would have zero claim to that material if they never bought electronic rights. I have no idea, but the fact that the list is up at several places and that the author himself posted not just the list, but the essay in full at Information Clearing House, tells me that this piece, at the least the 14 points, are now in the public domain. That is the way it is being treated anywhere else, but DU as usual gets weird when it targets people.

Public domain material can be used in full. Other examples of public domain (that are born that way) are the United States Budget, a National Weather Service product, my local city budget and any article posted on the web under a commons license.

If you should write the ALL AMERICAN NOVEL, I recommend you still register with the copyright office. If for whatever reason somebody takes it, you will be able to prove it that much much easily. It used to be it was required if you had to defend it in court, to have that important letter in your physical hand, but at this point, it is not...just highly recommended. Oh and if you post that novel on an open site, it is considered published. Closed critique groups seem to be fine but have yet to be tested.

Copyright Technical Fouls at DU

We see them them here very often, The best example of a technical foul is when people post a breaking news story with only one sentence... that one sentence is called in the business a place holder. But since that is all there is at that moment, it is a technical copyright foul. Imagine how LBN would look if those were not allowed. Now a MEDIA publication, points at myself and many others, will paraphrase what the AP (that is a trademark by the way, another area of related law) posted, and link to the place holder.

But as good as the AP, and I am using them becuase they are the most aggressive at defending their copyrighted material, like most news services will ignore news aggregators. Guess what this place is? A news aggregator... a pretty decent one actually, But it is shares that with the Drudge Report which is ONLY a news aggregator. So I doubt the AP will come after this place...

Fair use is about 1 percent of a piece. You know how many times I see people using 4 paragraphs, of 5 paragraph story? That is a technical foul, well within the guidelines of the internal policy. This also means that much longer quotes than 4 paragraphs, coming from a book are fine under United States Tittle XVII fair use guidelines.

Then I also see people using 7 and 8 paras from much longer pieces from places like Vanity, outside the policy, but perhaps well within fair use as well.

And with that, I expect a few people to alert... of course I do. I have a target on my back. A few more to get snarly. and the hosts to close it... it is what it is.

(Copyright Nadin Abbott 2015)

[uppityperson]

1. Thank you for putting this post together. I hope Admin answers my ATA question also.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. I will be honest

I don't care what skinner says... unless it is coming straight from his lawyer and it is supported with case law.

I know that internal policy has many, many, many holes after seating though those seminars, I am not an expert, but have enough knowledge to feel I was targeted, and with that I have to go look at policy documents and write a piece about a silly phenomena I am seeing with partisans. Suffice it to say, the last week on DU has been horrific personally. Starting last Saturday to be specific. So forgive me if I feel I have a very large target on my back.

[PeaceNikki]

10. You were "targeted"? By whom? For what?

[uppityperson]

20. I will post the reply anyway because it affects many of us on DU and it'd be nice to know. nt

[TexasProgresive]

2. The other day I happened upon the copyright symbol on my MAC

Since reading what you wrote I guess I should place it here - ©

[Buns_of_Fire]

7. Maybe just put it in the sig line and be done with it? nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Just add the year

[merrily]

3. More:

The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 extended copyright terms in the United States. Since the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship. The 1976 Act also increased the extension term for works copyrighted before 1978 that had not already entered the public domain from twenty-eight years to forty-seven years, giving a total term of seventy-five years. The 1998 Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.[1] Copyright protection for works published prior to January 1, 1978, was increased by 20 years to a total of 95 years from their publication date.

This law, also known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Sonny Bono Act, or (derisively) the Mickey Mouse Protection Act,[2] effectively "froze" the advancement date of the public domain in the United States for works covered by the older fixed term copyright rules. Under this Act, additional works made in 1923 or afterwards that were still protected by copyright in 1998 will not enter the public domain until 2019 or afterward (depending on the date of the product) unless the owner of the copyright releases them into the public domain prior to that. Unlike copyright extension legislation in the European Union, the Sonny Bono Act did not revive copyrights that had already expired. The Act did extend the terms of protection set for works that were already copyrighted, and is retroactive in that sense. However, works created before January 1, 1978, but not published or registered for copyright until recently, are addressed in a special section (17 U.S.C. § 303) and may remain protected until the end of 2047. The Act became Pub.L. 105–298 on October 27, 1998.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. I decided to keep it simple and just mention where it stands right now

at one point it was just 30 years

[merrily]

11. That is where it stands. In the US, anyway.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. As one of the lawyers teaching that seminar put it

let's forget European law... or Latin American law, or Canadian law.

It gets nasty. Since a product might lose protection just by crossing an international border, this is what both TPP and TISA are about.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. You're the first person who has ever told me fair use is 1%.

I've always been told on various blogs that '3-4 paragraphs' is fair use, with no reference to the length of the original article.

[merrily]

9. What if the entire article is 3-4 paragraphs long?

Fair use is a bit more complex:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

17. I'm not suggesting Nadin is wrong, just pointing out

that where people 'get it wrong' is that they simply accept what they've been told by other people around them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. That is what we were told during the seminar

mind you, that was for general entertainment media, so nost of those pieces, fair use would be 1 paragraph.

The 3-4 para comes from a series of places on the web, like DU. It's never been tested, but the 1 percent rule was also drilled into my head in graduate school, with history seminar... the first time I was actually was exposed to these concepts.

Of course you are free and encouraged to cite primary sources, but sometimes primary sources (read news articles) are still outside the public domain.

[Brickbat]

13. There are a lot of factors that go into fair use that are very clear, but some of it also comes down

to subjective judgment. Using a word count or percentage is not a good way to approach the concept of "fair use."

[PeaceNikki]

15. You know.... I suggest that you get a grip about a few things.

ONE person brought your attention to DU's policy yesterday. One person. One poster, not a host, not an Admin, not a member of MIRT. One person. That person was me, in fact. I didn't threaten you, I didn't get snarky or nasty, only posted the policy and that you were violating it, as written.

You freaked, deleted it and turned it into a fucking federal case, acting like there was some 'message' or attempt to get rid of you. It wasn't.

Move on, seriously.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. And now a lovely personal attack

as expected

[PeaceNikki]

18. That was not an attack. Nothing about that reply was an attack.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Add something to the discussion or not

I don't care.

You have not

I posted this as information only, place holder posts ARE a violation of CR law.

[MineralMan]

21. Locking.

A consensus of available Forum Hosts has decided to lock this thread, for the following reasons:

From the Admins Pinned thread in GD:

DISRUPTIVE META-DISCUSSION
Positive threads about Democratic Underground or its members are are permitted.

Threads complaining about Democratic Underground or its members; threads complaining about jury decisions, locked threads, suspensions, bannings, or the like; and threads intended to disrupt or negatively influence the normal workings of Democratic Underground and its community moderating system are not permitted.

For DU's rules regarding materials protected by copyright:

From the DU TOS:

Don't willfully and habitually infringe on others' copyrights.
To simplify compliance and enforcement of copyrights here on Democratic Underground, we ask that excerpts from other sources posted on Democratic Underground be limited to a maximum of four paragraphs, and we ask that the source of the content be clearly identified. Those who make a good-faith effort to respect the rights of copyright holders are unlikely to have any problems. But individuals who willfully and habitually infringe on others' copyrights risk being in violation of our Terms of Service.

You can post your complaint in the Ask the Administrators forum, where it will be seen by the site's administrators. Here is a link to that forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1259