User talk:PM Poon/Copyright

Common misunderstandings

 * It's okay to quote up to 300 words. The 300-word limit is reported to be an unofficial agreement, now long obsolete, among permissions editors in the New York publishing houses: 'I'll let you copy 300 words from our books if you let us copy 300 words from yours.' It runs counter to the substantiality standard. As explained above, the substantiality of the copying is more important than the actual amount. For instance, copying a complete short poem is more substantial than copying a random paragraph of a novel; copying an 8.5×11-inch photo is more substantial than copying a square foot of an 8×10-foot painting. In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a news article's quotation of approximately 300 words from former President Gerald Ford's 200,000 word memoir was sufficient to constitute an infringement of the exclusive publication right in the work.


 * Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

What copying is allowed under the Act?
To balance the rights of copyright owners with the needs of the general public and researchers to have access to copyright materials, the Copyright Act provides a number of exceptions to the general rules regarding infringement of copyright. It is the responsibility of the person doing the copying to ensure that the Act is not being infringed. The main exceptions are:


 * Insubstantial portion
 * Copying for examinations
 * Temporary electronic copies
 * Fair dealing for certain specific purposes:
 * Research or study
 * Criticism or review
 * Reporting of news

Insubstantial portion: "Substantial" is not defined by the Act. For books, the Act allows one or two pages for a book up to 200 pages in length and no more than 1% if more than 200 pages. For all other categories of copyright material, the Act does not provide a measure for insubstantial. The onus is on the copier to justify that the amount is insubstantial. The exception does not apply at all to artistic or musical works.


 * Source: http://www.library.uq.edu.au/copyright/rescopying.html

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Q: Do we need to get permission to quote a sentence or two from a BNA publication?

A: No. Permission is not needed for occasionally quoting a small portion of content from a BNA publication. Examples are a few sentences or a paragraph. However, in keeping with good citation practice, you should always give proper attribution to the BNA publication (i.e., full publication title, full article title, date and page number).


 * Source: http://www.bna.com/corp/copyfaq.htm