Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[peterjc]

I plain to create a bookmarking website that allow user to submit webpage that they found useful and wound like to share.  It just like some of the existing social bookmarking website like digg

The format of the submitted webpage is like below:
1) the Title of the webpage or article. When click on the title, will link to the original webpage
2) display the source's domain below the title
3) a short description regarding the webpage or may be some short portion from the beginning of the article.

So, is linking to other people's webpage contents with a short description copied from the beginning of the article will cause any copyright infringement? 

Example like when submit a webpage using some other social bookmaring website, the website will fetch the webpage title and description from the HTML META Tag via the URL provided.  Is doing so legal?

Thank in advance

[Zonath]

Well, as a starting point, let's assume that the elements of copyright infringement would be met by your copying of the short portions from the articles.  You'd be copying expression to which you have no license from the copyright-holder.

As I see it, you may have a couple of potential defenses to copyright infringement.  First, your use may fit into the 'fair use' doctrine, which allows limited uses of copyrighted material in certain circumstances and for certain purposes.  As long as your use of copyrighted material is minimal and doesn't usurp the copyright holder's market, fair use may give you a decent defense.  Of course, take a meeting with an attorney who handles copyright issues to make sure that the facts in your case would really fit into the fair use defense.

Secondly, if your links are being submitted by users, you may be protected by the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides some immunity from copyright infringement stemming from user-submitted content to providers of Internet services who comply with the registration and takedown notice requirements of the Act.  Of course, again whether or not your particular facts would actually fit within that defense is best left to someone who actually has all the facts of your situation.

So on balance, I would say that it's likely that your use could be legal, but you would still want to proceed carefully.

[peterjc]

Thank for your reply

1) So, if the user does not copy part of the contents, but just enter his or her own short description(summarized from the article) about the website content, is that mean totally legal?

2) what if copying of the short portions from the articles and the article is licensed under creative commons attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.  As the article license mention for Noncommercial use only.  But if the user bookmark it on the bookmarking website contain ads like google ads, is that mean it is illlegal because the website using it commercially?

From what i notice, some blog owner mention their article is licensed under the creative commons attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported, but they still put the social bookmarking button to allow user to post to digg social bookmarking site.

Thank

[Zonath]

If the users submit the links with their own summaries that are not copied from the articles themselves (let's say that there's no copying of any expression; only of ideas) then there would be little or no concern regarding copyright infringement.  Copyright does not protect ideas or facts, only particular expressions of those facts or ideas.

I have not read the terms of the Creative Commons licenses in quite some time, so don't really have a clear recollection of what all is and is not allowed via the license you specify.  'Open source' licenses like Creative Commons and GPL are ways for the content creators to give blanket permission to a wide variety of users to copy the content while still retaining some control over the types of uses to which the content may be put.  But the Creative Commons license does not give any additional rights over and above what is given by the copyright laws, so content covered by a Creative Commons license is still subject to the various defenses to infringement which apply to any copyright, such as fair use and DMCA internet provider immunity.  So if your use is a fair use under an 'all rights reserved' copyright, it's probably not any less likely to be considered a fair use under a Creative Commons licensed copyright.

I also would not necessarily read too much into a copyright holder who licenses his or her work under Creative Commons putting a social bookmarking link on their articles.  Copyright holders are generally free to license their material under a number of different licenses, some of which might appear inconsistent with each other.  Copyright holders can also be fairly capricious in giving license to use their work; even if they've got a link to Digg or Reddit or whatever, they can still pursue infringement cases against other sites that use their content in similar ways and without permission.

[peterjc]

Thank you Zonath,

one question, because i plain to host the website at United Kingdom(UK) based hosting company, and i live at another country(not US country also), so can i still protect my self using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)?  From what i know, DMCA is US law right?

Thank.

[Zonath]

Yes, DMCA is a US law, and while some countries may have DMCA-like provisions in their copyright laws, it really does behoove you to know the copyright laws in both the country where your web servers are located as well as the country from which you're going to be running the site and living, since those laws may offer a greater or a lesser amount of protection than you would have under US laws.

I would also warn that, while I believe some countries have adopted fair use laws similar to those of the US, those laws may also be more restrictive on what would be considered fair use, and the information given here is based on US understandings of fair use.