Are press releases copyrighted? Actually i run a PR distribution site (newly started) and i am kind of wondering whether we are we allowed to pick good PR from the actual source (not distribution sites like prweb etc..) and publish on my site. Please comment your views.
i did what you are telling nearly one year ago on my site. they found me and told that this not legal and i removed it
yeah, thought about that. currently, i solely depend on people posting free press releases on my site.
Press releases are intended for distribution, so I don't see any reason a company would not want their release published in one more location.
To add to what tschrock said, you could always ask the company for permission and you will likely get approved for most releases. A more aggressive strategy would just be to notify then that you are using the PR on your site and give them an option to request you take it down. Most important to cover your ass but I find it highly unlikley you would land in court over a PR being published, unless the owner repeatedly requested you take it down and you never obliged.
If a press release is well written and has information that can benefit one of my sites, then I pick up the press release in entirety and give full attribution to whom it is due. This means that if PRWeb distributed the release, they get full credit for that release. I'll leave in all links and I may pass a note onto the company to tell them that their release has been republished.
If I am not mistaken PRWeb has PRtrackback - you need to fill in the form and then publish the release you like on your site
I have worked for newspapers and have been a partner in a small publishing company since 1988 and a web publishing company since 1994 and can tell you that companies issue press releases to get their story out . . . not to bury it. However, they may disagree with having their material used in an aggregator website without their permission and active participation. They may also disagree with having their press releases appear on personal websites because they intend to get the information in front of a specific audience via "bona fide" and "reputable" news outlets. A news publisher can safely use relevent press releases in their site. By contrast, a press release aggregator site will likely need to obtain permission because it is acting as a distributor instead of a publisher of news.
The part of the press release that say "For immediate release" means it's being released for distribution. I think most PR people expect you to rewrite the article but a lot of journalists just post the thing word for word.