Posted on 05/11/2011 11:46:37 PM PDT by conservativehawkeye
Something interesting just happened tonight when I just tried posting an entire article from The Des Moines Register... It isn't allowed to because of a copyright complaint...
So now I can't point to articles in the largest newspaper in my state because people don't realize you don't post entire articles here (or anywhere) without permission.
But let's just continue to whine about excerpts. Here's a question, if we aren't supposed to do it, why does Free Republic give us that option when we post?
When we post entire articles it is not fair to the authors of the original content whether it is The Des Moines Register, Fox News, or some local blogger.
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.
Good answer
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.
When I post articles from my blog I try to post the whole thing here. But because Wordpress butchers the formatting it’s always better for me to post my content in a PDF, which is much more readable and allows images to be used wthout a fuss. I’ve tried to figure out how to get PDF’s to show here, or how to get even the content from the PDF’s to show here. As far as I can tell it requires a lot more know-how than I have. The more time I have to spend trying to become a computer expert, the less time I have to concentrate on my research.
I don’t earn any money for clicks at all on my blog. My only interest is informing the public, and I have a standing invitation to anybody to copy and use anything I’ve got as long as they keep the content accurate. The more we can get the information out there, the better, and I don’t care who knows the information is from me.
As a result of all this fuss over whether blogs can route traffic from Free Republic, I haven’t been posting my content in posts here at Free Republic. I’ve had some major posts that have gotten little scrutiny because I feel that if my content is not wanted here then people know where to find me and can subscribe to find out when I post something new. Maybe people need to realize that’s what they need to do.
I can say that when I did post my content here and provided links I did not get a lot of traffic, for whatever reason.
The more research I do, the more I realize what total crap the “legitimate” news sources are. It bugs me that linking to them is considered fine but linking to blogs - many of which are the only places carrying the real meat/research on a story - is somehow suspect, regardless of whether the blog has any monetary interest involved. I fear that we are letting bickering among ourselves get in the way of the real battle that needs to be done for the sake of this country.
I don’t contribute as much to Free Republic as I would like to, simply because our finances are a shambles right now largely due to vehicle repairs. But I do contribute monthly what my husband has agreed that we can manage. I gain no income from my blog. Financially speaking, I get a negative gain from Free Republic, but it is worth it because of the important work being done at Free Republic.
The idea that my research makes FR a crappy place that nobody would want to visit definitely makes me feel less than welcome. If a silencing effect is what you’re after - to keep us “crappy” bloggers from encroaching on the credibility you get from posting good ol’ “mainstream media” content, then congratulations, because that is the result.
The main purpose of the forum is to post the crappy news source, then comment on how crappy it is. A blog post is usually an opinion piece and should be used sparingly. I’m not sure why bloggers think we are all fasinated by their opinions.
fascintated
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.
You are not a typical blogger - not by a longshot.
I thought the purpose of the forum was for conservative and Constitutional activism, which relies on people being INFORMED above and beyond the crappy non-news of the so-called “credible” media.
We can b!tch until the cows come home but unless we do something to change things it’s just psychotherapy to make us feel better. If we don’t like the crappy non-news sources we need to come up with something better.
I don’t look at a lot of blogs but the ones I do look at are INFORMATIONAL. They report on research that nobody else is doing. Which is what I also have on my blog. And there is NO - repeat, NO - major source on the web that will report all the credible research. You would not believe the censorship that happens even among so-called “conservative” news sites.
The RINO’s, “mainstream media”, courts, etc are all in bed with each other. That’s why even decent elected officials go off the rails once they get to DC, and forget who they work for. When you have a dysfunctional system the only way to change it is by some kind of intervention - some planned or unplanned event that interrupts the status quo. Because the media and politicians are holding the US process hostage by their own dysfunctional relationship, the only way out of it is by sources coming in that are NOT dysfunctional. They are OUTSIDE the dysfunction. This is why the DC cabal is scared to death of Sarah Palin; because she has firmly aligned herself in the “I don’t give a rip what the Washington elites think about me” camp. She is an outsider, or at least she was before she joined Fox. I’m hoping Fox isn’t corrupting her.
This is a systemic problem and if it was going to be fixed by people b!tching about how bad the media is, it would have been fixed a long time ago. Andrew Breitbart had the right idea when he chose to start an alternative media source, and he’s been doing great as far as he has been willing to reach, but there’s stuff he won’t touch either, because he thinks it will damage his still-fledgling credibility.
So what I’m saying is that we need to realize that the current media system is killing this country. If we are serious about saving this country - and not just trying to get a little b!tching in so we can feel more high and mighty than those lowlife liberals - then we need to work on totally scrapping the current media models.
That ain’t gonna happen if the only people we allow to be heard are the current media sources that deserve to be shunned and ignored.
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.
Not all blogs are equal. It is possible to reach an agreement to post your material without fuss, we just need to OK it with Jim. Posting a PDF directly is not technically possible, but posting a link to a file is if you can host the file elsewhere. Then, if everyone knows you have Jim’s blessing, there is no problem.
These things can be worked out. Believe me, if we blindly ban people because of a brainless rule then we lose good conservative thought. We are not like that and that would hurt FR as a conservative forum. Our intent is ONLY to keep Free Republic from the growing scourge of blog pimping as a marketing tool.
Try sending a FReepmail to humblegunner with your ideas (he’s the blogger overlord) and I believe that something can be worked out. OK?
conservativehawkeye
Since May 6, 2011
What you don't seem to realize is that the forum scraps the media models. The media will always have ad money to spend so long as there is a boob tube with some shocking new report at 11. This forum picks apart the media bias, errors and lies quickly. We don't need a blogger to do that, sometimes they help, more often they add noise (e.g. the birther crap). The country will be killed by Soros and others who fund lots of manipulation, not just in the media. They have lots of plants in social media. They fund disrupters and we our share here. The way to fight it is a large, strong and smart forum base, not a few whiz kid bloggers who think they have all the answers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.