Also, where does it say that one can post full copyrighted articles without permission?

Brad Wardell- On the subject of copyright and ownership, JoeUser.com claims no ownership to what we write, but what is the situation with the comments on our articles? Do the comments become kind of like emails to us and are they definitely our property as well?

I'm not really sure. JoeUser.com doesn't claim ownership of any articles or comments though.

jeff allison : No. posting the entirety of an article is copyright infringement without permission. See the third part of your quote:

"the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and..."

That means you take into consideration the amount used to decide whether something is legitimatly 'Fair use'. No where does it say that you can use the work as a whole.

The nature of an open site such as this is for converstaion regarding various issues. To post a story for information purposes for others to see and then for a group to have discussion about is clearly legal within fair use guidelines. the above post regarding 'educatiors and libnrearians' was in specific reference to educators and librarians. There are many, many sites on the web that do only the reposting of columns, most without comments, all within the guidelines of fair use. If the real issue is more of one regarding storage space on JoeUser then it should be discussed that way and not be put out as some kind of copyright infringement.

If I post articles in full from Time Magazine here, you can be assured that their lawyers would contact us if they had a problem. I am not aware of any sites that knowingly allow copyrighted articles from other sites to be posted on there. It's essentially warez. In skinning we call it ripping. If someone wants to just repost other people's articles, JoeUser.com is not the place for them. This is a blog site for people to write their OWN stuff.

Brad, I got a comment once that said something like "Steven, you write well enough, why do you have to copy stuff from Kennedy?" I had been advised in building my websites [Yahoo, Tripod, Angelfire] that I use the copyright notice on each article, story or poem I submit. So I assumed it was the same for blogsites. Let me know if I can discontinue this practice for JoeUser. [Kennedy]

Steven - I think you putting a (c) by your articles is a good thing because it sends a clear message to others that "Hey, this is my stuff." and that you take pride in your well written articles.

In the college I'm currently attending, plagiarization is a very serious offense. First one: major warning and F in class it happened, second time? F in class, and banned from Clark college forever.

This is too funny_when all arguments FAIL...start a copyright violation bust...Too close to the truth for comfort? I post articles to shed another light on a given situation. Have I violated JoeLoser terms?
You know_BRAD since you are so Fucking important around here_and know foreign policy and human rights issues_ better than anyone, you and your cronies had best just IP ban me, I know what fair use is have not broken some invented law of yours... And if you wish not to comment on the particular, then don't. Next I am posting an article from TIME so hurry up and play President/.
Perhaps you should just require all Brad Wardell Blog participants to agree to think and believe as you do before signing on at Joe Loser.
I think its hilarious_the truth hurts doesn't it................want some more?
Adios kind and funny people among you.

E- Macys is acting like a kook who is filled with seething rage and malcontentism.

My guess on this issue is that a repost is OK only if you give credit to the author, post only a portion of the article, and then link to the rest.

E. Macy: are you really, really vain, or is there some reason that you think he is talking to you?

It isn't a made up law. As a matter of fact many sites don't even allow having exclusive content deep-linked, much less carried off to other sites. Copyright is about an author being able to choose who can reproduce their work, and how it is presented. When anyone posts whole articles, they go beyond fair use and deny them that right.

I'm not sure how that is a 'Brad' issue.

E. Macy:
The issue at hand is that people are posting COMPLETE copies of articles and either not providing proper references (which are required, otherwise you are portraying the content as having been created and owned by you) or not providing any additional comment or insight. Doing so is not constructive or conducive to disgussion. You'd be much better off just linking to the article and providing 1 or 2 lines of personal insight. Personally, I think if you feel an article is important enough to put up here, that you have a strong enough opinion on it to actually put forth your own thoughts and ideas.

Simply copying is ethically wrong, illegal and shows a severe lack of creativity and original thinking on your part.

E-Macy, there are two issues there:

1) Copyright violation is something we take seriously. This may come as a shock but we've been concerned about copyright laws long before JoeUser.com even existed on WinCustomize.com. You can't just take someone else's work and repost it without their permission. It's illegal and immoral.

2) But let's say it wasn't illegal. We would still have a problem with it. I could, for instance, simply repost other people's blogs, and articles ad nasaeum. So could everyone else. And the blogs would be meaningless.

BTW, E-Macy, I don't really care if you stay or not. One more intentional reposting of copyrighted material and you're gone.  You saw the notice and you've made a couple of new blogs that announce your intention to violate someone else's copyright.  Write your OWN stuff or LINK to other people's stuff but don't repost other people's stuff without their permission.

Perhaps the legal issues should just be dropped so as to avoid arguements.  Then you could just say "in order to maintain a high quality of personal blogging, reposting full copyrighted material of other poeple is not allowed."

KarmaGirl:"Copying an online article is no different than photocopying a page out of a book. Neither fall in "fair use". They are both against copyright law."

I would have to disagree with this statement. Copying an article in it's entirerty is very different than copying a single page from a book. Copying the book page, or even going so far as to copy the whole book for personal use only, is very much fair use. This is the same as the copying that goes on inside your browser when you navigate to an article online. The browser makes a copy of the article in your computer's memory, which is still fair use.

Where the usage starts to be illegitimate is when you start copying and sharing the content with a mass audience, or charging for the content. For example, reposting an article in full, or sharing copyrighted programs or music online. There is a very big difference beween this type of copying and distribution and simply copying a page out of a book for your own use.

You may think I'm just picking a nit here, but this issue is at the root of a lot of copyright controversy today. For example, the music companies and their movement toward copy protected media and DRM. Things that restrict what I do with material I buy personally, in my own house, restrict my fair use. See the copyright code posted by Jeff Allison above. Nobody has a right to control what I do, as long as I'm not distributing it.