Copyright, Ethics & Fair Use Content Curation

Create, curate, but never pirate - Content Curation: Copyright, Ethics & Fair Use
Fair Use

Here’s what the law says about Fair Use and the four considerations that factor into it:

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair.

The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes


The nature of the copyrighted work

  • The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

  • The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work The distinction between what is fair use and what is infringement in a particular case will not always be clear or easily defined. 

  • There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

  • The key pieces here are that you are not hurting the original author by sharing their work, you are not sharing too much of their work, and that simply acknowledging them as a source may not be sufficient.

A Dozen Of The Best Ways


Kimberley Isbell of the Nieman Journalism Lab cited a Harvard Law report and published an extensive post legal considerations surrounding news aggregation.  Her summarized best practices and recommendations are below along with my justifications on why it’s in your best interests as a marketer to follow them as I wrote in an earlier blog post.
Best Practice #1:  Reproduce only those portions of the headline or article that are necessary to make your point or to identify the story. Do not reproduce the story in its entirety.
Why you should follow this as a marketer: The more you link to third parties original content, the more likely they are to link back to you – which ultimately improves your SEO.
Best Practice #2:   Try not to use all, or even the majority, of articles available from a single source. Limit yourself to those articles that are directly relevant to your audience.
Best Practice #3.    Prominently identify the source of the article.
Best Practice #4.    Whenever possible, link to the original source of the article.
Best Practice #5.    Whenever possible, provide context or commentary for the material you use.
Best Practice #6: When sharing images, unless you have explicit permission to share a full-size image, always share a thumbnailed image at most.
Best Practice #7: Link back to the original article prominently, not buried all the way down at the end of post.

Best Practice #8: If you are re-posting an excerpt from the original article, make sure your excerpt only represents a small portion of the original article. 
Best Practice #9:  If you are reposting an excerpt from an original article, make your commentary longer than the excerpt you are reposting.
  It’s also good for SEO because it reduces the amount of duplicate content.
Best Practice #10: Retitle any and all conAlso because the browser address bar shows the curator’s URL instead of the publisher’s URL, it can be deceiving. 
 While use of an iFrame is not unethical, to be nice, you should offer readers to ability to close the iFrame and view the original article directly on the publisher’s site. 
  consideration for using iFrames in an earlier post.

Best Practice #12: Don’t use no-follows on your links to the original publisher’s 

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