by Alfred C. Frawley

As a general rule, bloggers should seek permission before copying other peoples’ work in substantial part. The fair use doctrine of copyright applies to blogging and fair use as a defense to an otherwise proven case of copyright infringement may allow the use of copyright protected works for literary criticism, commentary, reporting, scholarship or teaching. With that in mind, it is best to avoid taking significant portions of the work you are commenting upon. A fair use defense would look at the substantiality of the portion of the work used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and the effect on the potential market of the copyright infringement. To protect yourself, bloggers should publish only as much and no more as required to make a point, credit the original author and link to the original source for the complete work.

To access the complete story, click here.