I think, It is not Illegal. Many are doing the same. Sometimes Popular websites like poemhunter.com, wrestlezone.com, news.com.au copy other articles but they mention the original author's name. But If original author will report your blog to Google. Your blog may face ban..
There is a doctrine of fair use. Some excerpts from the article should be fine. Copying of the entire article may not be, even if you did mention the author's name. It would be best to ask for permission if you are copying an entire article.
Hey, better write your own articles. if you can't do it, do as i do: pay for them on competent writer. In DP there is some greate writers, if you need names just PM me cause i got 2 or 3 in my buddy list. if you are going to re-print someone's article, you wont get any serp's love, and no traffic because it will be flagged as duplicate content. Think about it!
You should provide appropriate reference to the original article/author. I don't think just mentioning the name of the author would be enough.
i think it depends on which article you copy. if it's from free sources like wikipedia, maybe you can. there are also lots of article in ezine that you can copy along with the signature of the author. there are even article with given PLR, that you can copy, edit, and put your name as the author.
You generally can't copy whole articles. You can copy excerpts, with a link. With respect to fair use, see http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html and http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/IntellectualProperty/copypol2.htm If you copy an entire article or content of someone's page, you will probably get contacted for its removal. If that doesn't work, the offended person may file a DMCA and even seek legal damages. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA Understand that copying entire articles or page content costs the originator money in the way of duplicate-content SEO penalties and lost traffic.
I like how he "forgot" to mention that you have to buy a copyright first in order for any of that stuff to apply.
You dont need to buy a copyright term or make a copyright registation of a text to prove its yours and to hold copyright of it. You could do it, but you still get hold of copyright wherever you create something.
Just take permission to author first, find the article base that available for free articles of course with author name put on in your post.
certainly if you mention the source you do not have any problem there, you are helping the author reach his article to many more readers.