Blog Etiquette & Copyright

[SmartMoney]

I'm noticing that there are blogs like this guy (http://www.business-opportunities.biz/) who, for virtually all of there posts, only grab a paragraph or two from another website and adds a link back to the other site. He has won awards for having a great business blog but he creates very little actual content.

Is this ethical? Is it good business? What are the copyright laws around harvesting content or even snippets from someone else's site?

thanks,

Jon

[flawebworks]

HA! That's better than this:

dcraremac/\blogspot.com/\
jewelryc/\blogspot/\com

Just click next blog. You'll get one of these every 7 or so.

[chachi]

those are niiiiice. I think I am going to post a comment on there and see if anyone is home

[www.AmCy.org]

I've done this with one of my forums. It's perfectly OK as long as you a) get permission b) give proper credit to the author and c) link to the website where the original work exists. Most authors love the extra attention so they invariably say yes as long as they get their name in lights.

It's a smart and easy way to get free content, IMO. Play by the rules and everybody wins.

AmCy

[mxlabs]

HA! That's better than this:

dcraremac/\blogspot.com/\
jewelryc/\blogspot/\com

Just click next blog. You'll get one of these every 7 or so.

unbelievable.

[BigEasy]

Just copying somebody else's work is pretty chincy, IMO. However, I don't see anything wrong with opining on a subject while citing references from elsewhere.

[mck9235]

I would only take someones content (meaning a paragraph or more) if I had actual permission from the webmaster. If I am quoting a line or two I will just put there name there, and if they do ask me to remove it I will. If the webmaster does have a copyright notice or such saying that he doesn't want any part to be reproduced without permission I wouldn't even quote the couple of lines.

[justtara]

I don't see what it wrong with doing this. It sounds like this guy has taken the time to research articles which may be helpful to others. He is probably also helping these sites in with SEO if he is using good anchor text for the links. He could be a little more careful to give the orginal authors credit though.

[discrete298]

I would allow my posts to be copied to other blogs as long as the other blogger adds some of her comments and a link to my blog.

[ziandra]

I am not a lawyer but I do recall something called the "fair use doctrine" in copyright which allows you to quote pieces of a copyright work without violating the copyright.

A quick google turned up http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/fair_use.html which seems support what I remember.

[Blogmaster]

I agree. It seems within the legal limits to me. Needless to saying that the purpose behind doing so is not very ethical and revolves around the creation of artifical content for search engines.