Social Media and Copyright Issues

If you Tweet a quote from an Associated Press story, are you in copyright violation? If you use press releases to fill a Website with content, are you violating some code of ethics? In this article, Linda offers information about various copyright issues and what you can do to walk inside the line of legality in global venues like social media.

How to Protect Yourself Against Lawsuits

So, how do you protect yourself from lawsuits when using social media tools such as your blog, Twitter, Facebook and more? Although, in most cases, lawsuits may not make it to court if you comply with what someone deems is a violation of their work, you never know how much fire power you're facing when you play on the Internet.

While I cannot offer legal advice, I can provide you with some common-sense information and some links at the end of this article. First, the advice:

• If you plan to link to another site and offer a summary of that site's information, you might ask in advance whether or not you can use their material – especially if you intend on an ongoing use.

• The above statement is true even if that site offers an RSS feed button. The original author may not intend their RSS feed to be used on another site as a way to develop content for another individual or company.

• With that said, if you use an RSS feed with a title that is linked to the other site and no other information, you probably are safe in regards to the 2000 ruling where linking is A-ok.

• Don't use another person's bandwidth as you link to images. First, ask the Web site owner or author if you can use the image, and then ask if it's ok to download the image to your server so you can link to it within the article. Always offer to provide a link back to that article that contained the original image.

• Play with sites that have copyright-free images and texts such as Wikipedia. With that said, I work with many editors I work with always link the image back to Wikipedia's larger copy of the same image out of respect for their work and the ability to use it without fear of lawsuit or without having to take time to ask for the use.

• Read copyright laws both for the country of origin and for the company usage. In the case of press releases, for instance, some press releases are accompanied by company logos – in this case, the company expects users to use that log along with the story.

• Press releases are fair use – the company or person who releases a press release WANTS you to use it as is and word for word. However, you can adjust press releases grammatically, as long as you include all the information that is essential (who, what, when, where, why and how, etc.). Even if you don't include all that information, I have yet to see an instance where the person who releases the press release sues for a reduced press release. Still, read the copyright rules contained within the press release site to be sure about what you can and cannot do to a press release.

• Watch out for news organizations, especially larger entities. Associated Press in particular. While it is ok to link to an AP story in most cases (even from Twitter), be aware of reducing that story to 140 characters. Use the headline only if you Twitter and include the news source (I put the news source in brackets, like this – [Reuters] or [CNN])

• Become involved with Open Source initiatives to learn more about both open source and about copyright laws.

• When in doubt, don't use.

Finally, realize that many digital copyright laws are being contested, have not been developed, or are non-existent. Don't put yourself in the position where you become the one who is sued and used to develop a new copyright law. While the publicity might be good for you and your site, if you are found in violation, the publicity may not help you.