Ask 15 lawyers, and you’ll get 15 different answers...
From Columbia U.:
“Because the rule of “fair use” is not precisely defined, it is advisable to request the copyright owner’s written permission for any quotation or quotations of 150 words or more.”
Generally 150-200 words may be copied, but never more than 3 paragraphs.
You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
Basically, you may post anything public on boards,
web pages, and or magazines, as long as you claim that it does NOT belong to you, site the original author, and that you are using it only to represent, and not gain anything from their use, unless the owning entity specifically forbids it.
Because of Free Republic's popularity and massive amount of pages, it is far more likely for a full text article to be hit on FreeRepublic via Google or another search engine, than it would be likely to be found on the Des Moines Register's website itself.
The average ‘page view’ income that any third tier website earns is less than a quarter penny, including people who choose to click on presented ads. I'm pretty sure that the Des Moines Register is average in paying over $14 per first time subscriber, and likely keeps with the average of paying $1.35 per web reader (advertising costs.)
Looking at the pure economics of it, the possible loss of a quarter of a penny to perhaps gain a likely reader vs the absolute cost of $1.35 per web reader is a gosh darn bargain. Not only that, but it is done at zero cost to them (no bandwidth expenses for the person reading the article.)
Excerpting, on the other hand, costs the paper the money for the serving of the article, the display of ads which likely aren't paid for via exposures but either on contract as an extension of print advertising, or compensated on a per click basis, which is highly unlikely to happen when a reader is just going to the website to read the rest of the article that wasn't displayed here. Beyond, a lot of Freepers link to the ‘print version’ of the article, which strips the ads out anyway, so all that is left is the direct cost of serving the article a few hundred (or thousands) of times.
All in all, the paper simply loses money when an article is excepted on FreeRepublic, rather than taking advantage of the free advertising that FreeRepublic’s exposure grants them. Same with bloggers and other content. Honestly, a lot of content creators should probably be paying FreeRepublic to display their full articles, as they certainly gain benefits from the exposure.
Most of the sourced material posted to Free Republic is posted according to the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law for non-commercial news reporting, education and discussion purposes. We used to post full text of most articles so we could document history as it's being made, but more and more news agencies are now requesting us to post excerpts and links only to their material, and some are requesting that we post no material at all from their sites. We are complying with all such requests. Click here for the latest list of copyright requests.
My suggestion is to paraphrase the article. Then you click on excerpt and state your opinion about the piece below it.
Let folks, if they’re curious, go to the full article.
Most people seem to be happy with paraphrasing and you are not trampling on the publisher’s copyright.
The Des Moines Register is a Gannett paper. Gannett has threatened to sue FR for posting even excerpts. Apparently FR responded by banning Gannett papers.
Wait, you woke up this morning to whine about posting whole articles.
Oh, looking at your history you have been whining for days.
Oh, look, you're a blogger.
Go away until to grow up.
Freshly minted bloggers who excerpt their material in order
to drive traffic away from Free Republic so as to gain blog
hits are scummy pimps.
Don't be a scummy pimp.
What gets me is that there have been a number of times I’ve heard about copyright complaints against FR.
Then you go out and Google the article and see like forty other sites that have it posted in its entirety.
FN hypocrites.
conservativehawkeye
Since May 6, 2011
Sorry. I should have pinged you to post #22 since I was talking about you.
I listed all three of you since it’s hard to tell which hat you’re wearing at any given time.
By the way, Shane, I noticed that you said you wanted your “shanevanderhart” account to be zotted, but they Admins wouldn’t let you do it? I’ve added a couple of people to this ping who might be able to help.
Even for a n00b you certainly have problems. Generally speaking when entering a complex and well-developed community like Free Republic, it’s best to spend some time reading the room, you know? Joining a community, especially one as well-established as Free Republic, and then spending one’s time complaining about rules is....well ignorant. Asking questions in a respectful, inquisitive manner, is much wiser.
Dude, chill out. Spend some time reading articles. Then spend some time commenting on them. You’ll discover a lot about the conservatives here, and you’ll develop some badly needed respect for what happens here. It’s a learning-curve thing, and in our I-want-it-now culture such important things tend to fall by the wayside. Free Republic isn’t the average website and the average quick-and-dirty methods don’t work here.
"I have no complaint if a good conservative blogger posts his own material to FR, not as an excerpt to drive hits and discussion back to his blog, but rather to impart useful information to OUR readers and to promote and join in on the discussion and conservative activism HERE on FR."
"If a blogger can’t or refuses do that, and if he constantly complains or fights with our participants over it, then I’d just as soon he doesn’t post here."
"We’re not really that interested in driving OUR traffic to YOUR blog."