pinky-wink

pinky-wink

Sunday, July 31, 2005

Lisa Media: Thief?

So it turns out I was quoted in The Hub this week, along with Illinipundit, Champaign Common Sense, Old Guy, Chambana Community Livejournal, and Openingbands.com. The Hub took it's quote from this post regarding the NAEP results, which many conservatives have used to trumpet the President's NCLB legislation.

It is flattering to be quoted, and I am humbled by the company, but I had absolutely no idea this publication was going to use my words. Frankly, I had no idea anyone was even reading this blog. So I did a little research on the legalities of quoting blogs. It looks like this site has the definitive conclusion:

Question: I found something interesting on someone else's blog. May I quote it?

Answer: Yes. Short quotations will usually be fair use, not copyright infringement. The Copyright Act says that "fair use...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." So if you are commenting on or criticizing an item someone else has posted, you have a fair use right to quote. The law favors "transformative" uses — commentary, either praise or criticism, is better than straight copying — but courts have said that even putting a piece of an existing work into a new context (such as a thumbnail in an image search engine) counts as "transformative." The blog's author might also have granted you even more generous rights through a Creative Commons license, so you should check for that as well.

I personally have no interest in a Creative Commons license. Maybe I should?

Either way, it looks like the bloggers of the world have fairly little control over who quotes what they say, and how those quotes are used. We should probably be a bit more careful in the future. Who knows who is out there?

posted by Pinky Winky at 2:43 PM

8 Comments:

IlliniPundit said...: I had no idea.

I've got a CCL (it's down at the bottom of my page.) My license states:

You are free:

* to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work

Under the following conditions:
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Hmmmmmm....; 8/01/2005 8:47 AM
Pinky Winky said...: To be specific, you are quoted on the bottom of page 20, the Community section. Technically, a poster named "jharris" was quoted from one of your comments (I assume), but your web address is there and it is clear the comments came from your site.

I don't think this is illegal, but it's a bit unethical to not even drop us an e-mail to let us know the quote would be in the paper, or to (gasp!) ask permission for use.; 8/01/2005 9:22 AM
Ol' Guy said...: Damn! I've hit the BIG TIME! My blog quoted in The Hub. What an honor (I think, i rarely read it...).

Neverthelss, just as I quote (with proper attribution) from other media sources, they are free to quote me (with proper attribution), since in reality, a blog is just an electronic media source.

Do they have to ask permission. Hell no!

Should they? In a column like that, just relating what blogs are talking about, probably not, as it could in itself influence the content of the blogs. If I knew I was being quoted, I might clean up my language or at least spell things correctly more often. What would my mother think?; 8/01/2005 1:16 PM
prairie biker said...: I've had to go after a couple sites that took complete postings of mine and made them remove them.

The big things to remember are they cannot take your post in its entirety and they must give attribution.; 8/01/2005 2:49 PM
Pinky Winky said...: I agree - as long as people aren't stealing my posts (and really - who'd want them?) I am happy to be quoted. Though I would like some sort of contact.; 8/02/2005 9:44 AM
Anonymous said...: it wasn't lisa....it was me, the community editor. i would love to establish contact with all the bloggers i have quoted and may quote in the future...however, if i were to do this on top of all the other things in my weekly schedule, i'm afraid my poor children, husband and housework would be even more neglected than they already are. anyway, just look at it as free publicity. i promise to always attribute and never reprint any post in full.

thanks for reading!; 8/02/2005 4:12 PM
Pinky Winky said...: thanks for posting Heather. My feelings on this have actually evolved quite a bit since Sunday, and I am really letting the "flattered" part of my emotions take over. As I've said, I was just surprised to see it in print, now I'm thrilled.

But this has been an educational exchange (for me, at least). It is great that you folks are reading these blogs and printing some of the posts. I just need to make sure what I write is what I mean, and that I can defend it properly, if necessary.

I appreciate your efforts. Thanks for helping to keep me honest. :); 8/02/2005 5:53 PM
lbotp said...: I don't have anything against the Hub -- I'm glad someone picked up the slack left behind by the other defunct alternative mags -- but I think this smacks of laziness.

It wouldn't be difficult to contact the bloggers in question with a simple e-mail letting them know they will be quoted in the Hub that week.

I also think this gets the Hub off the hook -- the defunct mags were a little too political for some advertisers, and that led to their downfall. The Hub has remained fairly neutral, but is borrowing blogger commentary to substitute.

just my two cents.; 8/03/2005 5:48 PM