Hello, I want to use some of the contents from a public site in one my site pages. I would really appreciate if someone could guide me with a format if any (probably a few sentences that can be added at the bottom of the page). OR some other ways like mentioning in the beginning of the page. I think I should check with them directly as well. In the archive's terms of use: it says in 2 sentences where in one sentence it says not for commercial purposes. Will a website like mine (in signature) fall under this? And in another sentence, it says to mention their website name. From the archive's terms of use -You agree to abide by all applicable laws and regulations, including intellectual property laws, in connection with your use of the Archive. In particular, you certify that your use of any part of the Archive's Collections will be non-commercial and will be limited to no infringing or fair use under copyright law. - In addition, we request that, according to standard academic practice, if you use the Archive's Collections for any research those results in an article, a book, or other publication, you list the Archive as a resource in your bibliography. Appreciate any help! Thanks
The best advice I can give you is to go look up the difference between 'copyright' and 'copywriting' in a dictionary, and once you understand that, go post this question in a more appropriate forum, such as legal, where this particular question has already been address about a gazillion times.
I would suggest you research what "fair use" means. What it does not mean is.."You can copy this material, post it in it's entirety on your website and provide a link back." Where the waters get muddy is when the material in question is in the public domain and the people running the archive are claiming you need their permission to republish. In theory, they can not place any restrictions on the material's use if all they have done is to scan or take a photo of it in the US (England protects photos of public domain works). Unfortunately, it doesn't always seem to work that way. Additionally, people define a commercial site differently. If it's a personal blog with no source of revenue, most agree that is a non-commercial site. If your blog/site has Adsense, some people consider that a 'commercial' site and others don't. Your best bet is to email the folks at archive.org and ask them to define the terms commercial site and fair use.
These days, almost all things are copyrighted the moment they are written, and no copyright notice is required. Copyright is still violated whether you charged money or not, only damages are affected by that. Postings to the net are not granted to the public domain, and don't grant you any permission to do further copying except perhaps the sort of copying the poster might have expected in the ordinary flow of the net. Fair use is a complex doctrine meant to allow certain valuable social purposes. Ask yourself why you are republishing what you are posting and why you couldn't have just rewritten it in your own words. Copyright is not lost because you don't defend it; that's a concept from trademark law. The ownership of names is also from trademark law, so don't say somebody has a name copyrighted. Fan fiction and other work derived from copyrighted works is a copyright violation. Copyright law is mostly civil law where the special rights of criminal defendants you hear so much about don't apply. Watch out, however, as new laws are moving copyright violation into the criminal realm. Don't rationalize that you are helping the copyright holder; often it's not that hard to ask permission. Posting E-mail is technically a violation, but revealing facts from E-mail you got isn't, and for almost all typical E-mail, nobody could wring any damages from you for posting it. The law doesn't do much to protect works with no commercial value.