MODIFICATIONS TO SOME OF THE PRE-EXISTING COPYRIGHT GUIDELINES ON THIS FORUM.
A few weeks ago two of our North East England Forum Threads were temporarily removed from our Forum and put into a ‘Quarantine Area’ (as SSC call it) as their IT warning systems had identified that there were possible breaches of Copyright within some of the posts on those two threads.
The threads were subsequently returned to us, full and intact, and no breaches of copyright were found on them. It had been a false alarm, but one that SSC had to thoroughly investigate, which they did.
While the threads were away, I took the opportunity to discuss with SSC Management (as I have done on numerous occasions previously) the best-practice guidelines for conforming with copyright requirements, within posts on the North East England Sub-forum.
As a result, there are some newly agreed guidelines that are published below, for all members to read and adhere to. Most of the below list is the same as we have always done, while some of them are a ‘strengthening’ of what we have always done, and one on the list is actually a ‘new’ guideline, that SSC Management have now decided is important.
GUIDELINES FOR QUOTED NEWS AND INFORMATION ONTO SSC, FROM NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES.
1 - We have always only allowed the copy and pasting of ‘extracts’ from the above sourced articles in Forum Posts, and have always insisted that the post contains a ‘clear link’ back to the Source Document for full reading of the article. It has now been additionally specified that the copy and pasted text should only contain approximately 70 words.
2 - To fully clarify this, from now on these posts may contain (but not exceed)
• The pasted ‘Title’ of the article.
• A pasted maximum of approximately 70 words from the article narrative. This should be enough to ensure clarity of message and for that reason it can be a summary/precis of the opening part of the article rather than just a copy of (say) the first paragraph.
• It is still considered useful to have a copy and pasted element of posts in this way, as if ‘just a link’ is posted, the link can eventually be lost/changed, thus rendering the SSC post meaningless, in the future.
• There must also always be a clear ‘link back’ directly to the source newspaper or magazine article.
3 – In the past, as part of the ‘copy and pasted’ article content in SSC posts, on many occasions we have included an ‘image/photo’ from the source article. I personally saw this as beneficial (“a picture tells a thousand words”) as it helped re-create the article being quoted, and encouraged interest in the content provided. It also often encouraged people to go on to ‘click the link’ back to the original source publication, to everyone’s benefit.
Forthwith, this is no longer allowed. Images from these articles are NOT to be copied and pasted into posts here on SSC. This is the ‘new’ aspect of these guidelines that I mentioned earlier.
4 – Please also note that the above points 1 to 3 also apply when you “quote” (in a new post you are making) a previous members post that contains an extract from a newspaper or magazine article that (if made prior to today) may not have fully complied with these guidelines. You can still use a quote of that earlier post, but please remember to remove any images and trim the narrative down (if needed) to the required sizes outlined above.
5 – Here is a link to an example of a quote of an extract from a newspaper article, that illustrates a suggested format that complies with all SSC copyright (fair use) requirements. I submitted this actual example to SSC Management, who confirmed that it fully met fair use requirements. See link below . . .
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=144667070&postcount=526
QUOTED NEWS AND INFORMATION ONTO SSC, DIRECTLY FROM ‘PRESS RELEASES’ BY ORGANISATIONS.
1 – The previously explained guidelines (for newspaper and magazine articles) are intended to maintain ‘fair use’ of such information on SSC, as this type content (information/news) is seen as originally being created by the content-owner to attract readers and to also make money through related advertising. Hence, that content is commercial and should be quoted as stipulated in the guidelines.
2 - However we can get a lot of similar information direct from ‘Press Releases’, and they are not the same as published media, as they were created with the specific intention of informing people about a subject as widely as possible, and re-posting them here on SSC only helps to further spread this news.
3 - Consequently, the above guidelines do not apply to such releases, though it should be noted that 'links back' should always be provided to any Press Release quoted. Also, it should be noted that I am only referring to 'directly obtained and quoted' releases, NOT to any that you may wish to quote from any already-published newspaper article. In the latter situation the previously stipulated newspaper and magazine guidelines fully apply.
4 - A recent example of the use in an SSC post, of a directly quoted Press Release, can be seen below . . .
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=145092059&postcount=3092
FINALLY.
If you have any questions about any of the above, please contact your Forum Moderators, either on your Admin Thread in the normal way, or by PM.