How right is pasting an entire article from a journal on to the blog? I was asked this question by Sudhir, a good friend of mine who is also a regular reader of blogs.
His point: By copying the entire article and pasting it on the blog, aren't bloggers violating any possible copyrights of the publisher?
Access to webcontents of many journals are restricted to various extents. While e-edition of some magazines (like Reader's Digest, India Today) are entirely restricted only to subscribers of the print edition, other likes The Economist have many articles limited only to paid subscribers, and in cases like Newsweek, Time etc, the archives are open only to subscribers.
On the contrary, articles put up on blogs are available in the public domain for ever; unlike a copy of the article lying in the personal folder inaccessible to the world at large.
Thus, aren't bloggers (and other website owners) inviting possible trouble from publishers of reputed newspapers and magazines?
I think, yes. There is an issue here, from the point of view of publishers. Not realising this point, I used to paste the entire article. The aim was nothing but to help the reader in case the link doesn't work. Wiser, from now on, I wouldn't be copy-pasting entire articles on to my blogs. There will be links, of course, whether they work later or not.
Blogs are uptill now the most evolved form of mass communication; sort of democratisation of journalism. The citizen is the writer, editor, publisher, printer, and may be even marketing manager. Blogs are monitored but unregulated. Putting curbs on blogs will kill it, take the beauty out of it. So, may be some self-regulation is in order.
This is about everything that is evolving around us with time .... The changing trends .... Their highs and lows .... The changes that are making an impact on our lives .... From technology to social, economic and political issues ... Some books, some sports, some personal anecdotes.
Thursday, August 4, 2005
2 comments:
I appreciate your comments. Thank you.
If your email ID is enabled in the Blogger profile, I'll reply to your comments via email because you won't have to come back here or look through email notifications to read my reply.
I might copy-paste the replies here if I feel they might be of interest to others as well.
For everyone else, I'll reply here.
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I did have doubts on this myself.
ReplyDeleteNice Post, liked the way you described blogs in the last para.
yep..i have posted entire articles myself. but i made sure that these articles are freely available in net (not just restricted to the subscribers), given the link and acknowledged the source. My only point in favor of posting the entire article is that several ppl dont click on the link and go read it. But then maybe people who cant put so little effort doesnt deserve to read it either. very relevant post by the way
ReplyDeletecheers
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