Is copying and pasting news from other websites onto my website copyright?

I live in New Delhi,INDIA and my website is registered with Yahoo India,Bangalore.

Nowadays I am getting my website designed.It is based on health and beauty.

My site will include interactive and informative options like Discussion forums,blogs,healthy recipes and NEWS SECTION.


The NEWS section is just a small section of my site,amongst the various other sections.This means that my site is NOT A NEWS WEBSITE.

In the NEWS section,the registered members of my site will post latest news related to health,beauty and nutrition,after copying and pasting the news from NEWS WEBSITES.


I will make it a rule that they mention the source of this news,ie,the name of website link,from where this news has been copied and pasted.If they don't mention the link,I will delete the news immediately.


1. Can this copy and paste lead to copyright violation,even if the members mention the source link of the news,next to the posted news?For example:


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/Gadgets-leading-to-health-disorders/articleshow/8316332.cms (SOURCE LINK)



2. Someone told me that for doing this,permission has to be sought from that news website,from where the news will be copied and pasted.But I have a doubt.


In many websites,I have seen members posting news from 100s of different websites daily.How is it possible for the administrator to seek permissions from all these news websites beforehand?He cannot predict beforehand that the members will copy the news from that particular website.So how can he take permission from that site in advance?


Please explain.Thank you.

 

It sounds like what you're describing would indeed constitute copyright infringement. If a webmaster was posting entire articles, even with the source, they could easily find themselves in legal trouble. For the most accurate information, I would check out the "copyright" section of the news site you're wanting to use an article from.

 

Copyright infringment all over it.
Do you or your user have permission to copy the articles? No, then don't do it or don't allow it.

 

1. Even if the source is mentioned, it would still be copyright infringement. It's alright to write your own article about the same piece of news and quote a small portion from the news article, as that could be considered fair use. But quoting the entire article is definitely not okay.

2. I doubt that those content thieves are asking for permission on a daily basis. Perhaps the news websites are aware of the copying and don't see any good reason to take any legal action. The copying would have to cause some significant financial losses to the news websites before they stand to gain anything from a lawsuit.

 

Copying is not good, maybe you can rewrite it and just give a source link back to them.. Just donate it man!

 

that's good AND if possible use embedding / quote code for the copied news content

 

Many sites allow reposts with backlinks make sure the news are copied from such resources and there won't be any copyright issues.

Or, there could be another way - getting some coded widgets which would display news from other sites automatically. You may contract such sites to develop the widget and place it upon your pages.

 

I have read somewhere that you can't copy the entire article from some source to your own website, even if you embed their link in the end of the article
for this you have to have prior permission of the correct authorities and if its not possible then don't copy the entire article but just quote a small portion of it and mention the source plus include a link like "read more" or "for full story click here" directing the reader to the corresponding news website

 

You are safe until your activites are detected by the Copyright owners. And when they will notice you, you will be sued. Be ready to hue and cry for messing up with copyright protected materials, specially beware of News Portals.

 

Hello and thanks to all the persons here for their wonderful answers.My doubts have been clarified to a large extent.

I was now thinking on the following lines,and need your opinion.Please answer only if you have good knowledge of Indian and international copyright Laws.


Queries:

1. If I ask my website members to write the news in their own words, after reading it in another news website,will that be legal?

2. If that is legal, does the law still demand that they mention the source of this news,even if they have submitted it in their own words?

3.If the above 2 options are not legally safe,please suggest me such ways through which members can submit news daily without my website getting into any legal problem.

4. Is it a good idea to put a disclaimer on my website that all the contributions made by members of my site,in forums,recipes and news sections are their own individual contributions and that my website is not responsible for the content they post.However on getting a complaint from another website,something has been copied from their site and and pasted onto my site by a particular member,I will delete it that content.Is such a disclaimer in accordance with copyright laws,and safe for me?


Please reply.Thanks once again in advance..

 

I think that your solution would just be to set up an RSS feed on your site from a few news organizations.

That way you would have no copy right issues / concerns and would take zero time to manage. If you wanted to create your own content out of these feeds you could just provide a "letters to the editor" section for the news.

 

The only news items you may legally copy and publish are news releases (or press releases).

 

Probably the safest thing to do would be to have folks write some sort of introduction or teaser for the article, post a link to the article and include the conversation starter. They can include a fully attributed paragraph safely under fair use but fair use does not allow publishing the entire article. I'd be wary of RSS feeds. Unless the site states you may republish them, they are copyright protected material - something many seem to miss.

I have no knowledge of Indian copyright law. Doesn't your government have a copyright office that you can call or a website that you can visit? International copyright law, from my study of the subject, is pretty standard from country to country. The only exception that I know of is Afghanistan. Apparently, they have no copyright laws.

 

you can copy and paste news content but use robot.txt to prevent from caching these pages in google.

 

Yes, you are able to do that, but it is against the law and you can be punished when you get caught.

 

RSS feed might be a good option. The best way to save yourself a lot of stress would be to ask users to give brief summaries or descriptions of the news event, then a link to the actual article. A lot of forums I participate in do this just to save the owner grief.

Also, I know you are asking for answers from people who have knowledge in Indian copyright law but I think asking a moderator to move this to the correct forum (legal) is going to be the only way this thread will be seen by people with more legal knowledge.

 

Yes, you can do this, sort of - as per US and India Fair Use Law. While you cannot copy and paste the entire news article, you can post a snippet from it (say 150 words of a 500 word piece, not half or 2/3 of the whole dang thing) and include a link to the original with something like "Read the rest of the article here", making "here" your anchor text to the original.

 

That is not true. Just because a site provides a RSS feed of its content does not give you permission to publish the content.

 

if you will copy someone else effort then you will be surely get in trouble ..

 

1. if the members can write in own words then that will be legal
2. still better to show the link of main source !!
3. not applicable
4. adding a disclaimer does not safeguard the web site owner from
law. however disclaimer should be clearly visible to use for defense