Remember Righthaven? That's the company with the business model of suing bloggers over copyright that ignited one of the more recent fair use controversy debates. A report last month from Fortune about the company asked questions like: "Could clicking a Like button lead to a lawsuit?" and "Are the days of posting stories to Facebook, emailing articles to friends, or printing out pieces numbered?" and suggested that social media could be "maimed". For further context read our previous coverage here and here.Are you concerned with how others use your own content? Let us know.
While we even found that to be a bit sensational at the time, words from Copyright Clearance Center Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary Frederic Haber seem to confirm that. He shared some commentary on the subject with WebProNews.
When asked whether he though social media sharing and emailing of articles was in jeopardy, his response was: "In jeopardy from copyright? No, copyright helps make all of that possible. Without copyright, it's much less likely that either the software or the articles would have existed to be shared. Users have always shared materials that they read or experienced and wanted to bring to the notice of their friends and social circles, and copyright has never stopped that; on the other hand, going into the publishing business by distributing other people's creations to strangers with whom you have no connection rather than creating things yourself is another matter."
"Social media sharing between friends or within social circles shouldn't impede publishers' and creators' ability to profit from their content, and neither should wider sharing of focused selections where the person doing the sharing is actually saying something like 'look how great this is!' or 'can you believe that he said this?' Then the person doing the sharing is actually making a contribution to society, even if in only a small way, and that is exactly the kind of thing that fair use protects. Simply making a copy in order to save someone else from having to buy her own is something else."
This is an interesting article regarding Fair Use and how other people use your content. I think sharing other people's interesting content is good as long as you don't try and make out it's your own work and link back to them.
