Does Fair Use Protect Bloggers?

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   cryptidposted 11 years ago

   One of my Hubs has been copied word-for-word on somebody's blog.  On the blog they also have a notice saying they know all of their content is under someone else's copyright, but they claim fair use for educational purposes.
   
   They were kind enough to link back to my Hub, at least. 
   
   Surely if I protest they will hide behind their flimsy legal stance.  Does fair use really protect them in this case or can I file a complaint?

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      Uninvited Writerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      They obviously do not understand the concept of fair use. I would definitely challenge it.

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         WriteAngledposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Agreed. Fair use covers the reproduction of a small percentage of an original work for the purposes of discussion, exemplification or criticism.
         
         A legal sounding letter will probably work wonders if you do not want to go to the expense of getting a letter sent from a lawyer, provided you can present it in a way that makes it appear to come from a company or partnership rather than from an individual.

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      Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Fair Use had been highly contested in various legal jurisdictions. It is a toss up on what is "actual" fair use...there are varying opinions. However, a copy/paste of an article will not fall under any type of fair use clause. The DMCA is the best choice if they refuse to unpublish the material themselves. I contact the owner or poster first, give up to a week, then file away myself. Overall, I have had some fantastic results from filing the DMCAs... Google does not tolerate the copy/paste sites at all. I have had numerous pages pulled from search.

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   psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

   They don't understand fair use.  Send the DMCA take down to them and then to their internet host.

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      relacheposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This.

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3. 96

   cryptidposted 11 years ago

   Thanks for the advice everyone.  Does the amount of text used matter in regard to fair use?  They had copied about 80% of my original article (I thought they scraped the whole thing at first but apparently they left out a paragraph or two) but yesterday I went in and added about 300 words of original text.  This is how I found the copy on their website.  This edit makes their copy about 40% of my present version of the Hub.
   
   I see no way to contact these clowns via email.  I may skip straight to the DMCA.

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      Dale Hydeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      There is no requirement that you contact anyone prior to filing a DMCA. I usually look and attempt to find someone to contact, but if I can't, or I do and they fail to respond, I simply go with the DMCA.

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   Greekgeekposted 11 years ago

   Skip straight to the DMCA.
   
   Here's a good primer on the FOUR factors of Fair Use from Stanford. All four factors must be satisfied, in order to qualify as fair use.
   
   ONE of the four factors is the amount that was taken. They should be excerpting; a complete or large part of the orignal is not fair use.
   
   Another is the impact it has on the original. In this case, it can knock your hub out of search results, or even get your hub locked as duplicate content, resulting in lost income.
   
   And "educational purposes" generally means classroom purposes, not uploading it onto the web. If they think it's useful for their students in its entirety, they can bally well link to the original, not copy it.

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