Quoting from articles

[Doctor Fegg]

Moderator note: split from Simon Jenkins article regarding cancelled electrification schemes: Is this serious?

Forum rules require you to copy and paste the article in to quote tags, opposed to just posting a link to it.

To be fair, copyright laws require otherwise.

 

[Bromley boy]

To be fair, copyright laws require otherwise.

Do they?

Then I assume you can show us which UK copyright laws are contravened by forum members posting links and quoting from freely available web content on a discussion forum...?

 

[JamesT]

Do they?

Then I assume you can show us which UK copyright laws are contravened by forum members posting links and quoting from freely available web content on a discussion forum...?

Posting links is fine, it’s copying the whole article which is not.
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Section 17, especially subsection 2 where copying means reproducing the work. (In this case the content from the webpage).
The next step is whether you have a defence from Chapter III where there are various exceptions allowing use that normally would be infringing. There are exceptions for people reviewing a work or news reporting (Section 30), but this explicitly says no more of the work should be reproduced than is strictly necessary for these purposes. Quoting a specific paragraph you want to respond to is fine, splurging the whole thing is not.

 

[pemma]

Posting links is fine, it’s copying the whole article which is not.
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Section 17, especially subsection 2 where copying means reproducing the work. (In this case the content from the webpage).
The next step is whether you have a defence from Chapter III where there are various exceptions allowing use that normally would be infringing. There are exceptions for people reviewing a work or news reporting (Section 30), but this explicitly says no more of the work should be reproduced than is strictly necessary for these purposes. Quoting a specific paragraph you want to respond to is fine, splurging the whole thing is not.

On other forums the rules require you to quote no more than a paragraph and give the link to the rest of the story but it appears on this one the moderators want you to quote everything in case forum users are prevented from accessing the site where the original article is.

Regardless of what forum rules state giving a thread of "Is this serious?" and then a link to an article on a news site with nothing more (as was originally the case here) is not a good method to adopt.

 

[Bromley boy]

Posting links is fine, it’s copying the whole article which is not.
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Section 17, especially subsection 2 where copying means reproducing the work. (In this case the content from the webpage).
The next step is whether you have a defence from Chapter III where there are various exceptions allowing use that normally would be infringing. There are exceptions for people reviewing a work or news reporting (Section 30), but this explicitly says no more of the work should be reproduced than is strictly necessary for these purposes. Quoting a specific paragraph you want to respond to is fine, splurging the whole thing is not.

The bits of of the section 30 exemption relevant to quotation are below (my emphasis):

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/30

F4(1ZA)Copyright in a work is not infringed by the use of a quotation from the work (whether for criticism or review or otherwise) provided that—

(a)the work has been made available to the public,

(b)the use of the quotation is fair dealing with the work,

(c)the extent of the quotation is no more than is required by the specific purpose for which it is used, and

(d)the quotation is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement (unless this would be impossible for reasons of practicality or otherwise).]

In most cases forum members will link to an article and then quote a relevant excerpt. This type of use is clearly quite acceptable and does not breach copyright law.

I’d suggest copying an entire article also falls squarely within this exception (and within c as emphasised above) where the article itself is only a few short paragraphs long and the entire article is what is being discussed, as in this case.

Note that section 30 was amended by regulations passed in 2014 and liberalised, partly to reflect social media usage, blogging etc. Guidance has been issued by the Intellectual Property Office clarifying the meaning of fair dealing which also suggests use of a short extract from a work (a brief article from a newspaper, a quotation from a longer article) is totally fine, depending on the context.

See a relevant paragraph below (my emphasis added):

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...ons_to_copyright_-_Guidance_for_consumers.pdf

Copyright law allows quotations to be used more widely without infringing copyright, as long as the use is fair (in law, the use must be a “fair dealing”, see the box below) and there is a suf cient acknowledgement – which generally means the title and the author’s name should be indicated. It is ultimately for the courts to determine whether use of a quotation is fair dealing, which will depend on the facts of any speci c case. However, the use of a title and short extract from a book in an academic article discussing the book is likely to be permitted, whereas the copying of a long extract from a book, without it being justified by the context, is unlikely to be permitted. You may benefit from this law if you are an author, academic, or even just a casual blogger.

 

[yorkie]

@Bromley boy - I agree

Edit: I have split the above 4 posts from Simon Jenkins article regarding cancelled electrification schemes: Is this serious? into a new topic

 

[IanXC]

On other forums the rules require you to quote no more than a paragraph and give the link to the rest of the story but it appears on this one the moderators want you to quote everything in case forum users are prevented from accessing the site where the original article is.

Just to clarify this, our forum rules have this to say:

• When copying others' material you should credit the publication, website and author as applicable. If you are in any doubt please ask us by private message.
• If referring to an external source you should put the text in QUOTE tags, provide details of the source and make a relevant comment to promote discussion.

There is no requirement to quote whole articles, there is a requirement to properly reference external sources and to quote a suitable amount of the article so that the reader does not need to follow the link to have some understanding of the material being referenced.

 

[Bromley boy]

There is no requirement to quote whole articles, there is a requirement to properly reference external sources and to quote a suitable amount of the article so that the reader does not need to follow the link to have some understanding of the material being referenced.

Thanks for the clarification, that makes a lot of sense.

By the same token I take it there’s no objection to pasting the entire article if appropriate for the context if, for example, the entire text is only two or three paragraphs long?

 

[IanXC]

By the same token I take it there’s no objection to pasting the entire article if, for example, the entire text is only two or three paragraphs long?

Thats a question of fair use in Copyright terms - each case is different. Its a case of applying a reasonableness test, put yourself in the publisher or the authors shoes, what would they think? If you've gone behind a paywall to quote a whole article then they're not likely to be very impressed. At the other end of the spectrum if your quoting part of their article is likely to lead to some readers following the link and/or becoming more aware of their work/publication then its a different situation.

 

[Bromley boy]

Thats a question of fair use in Copyright terms - each case is different. Its a case of applying a reasonableness test, put yourself in the publisher or the authors shoes, what would they think? If you've gone behind a paywall to quote a whole article then they're not likely to be very impressed. At the other end of the spectrum if your quoting part of their article is likely to lead to some readers following the link and/or becoming more aware of their work/publication then its a different situation.

Great, thanks. That common sense approach sounds very sensible.