Whilst we encourage the use of quotes and links from various sources within members posts, we would ask that you please be aware of the matter of copyright 

The copyright laws vary from country to country and, as with most laws, are difficult to summarise 
 

Falling foul of the copyright laws can however be disastrous for a site such as ours, which is run on a voluntary basis and would therefore be unable to pay fines or deal with the legal repercussions  should we be sued by anyone owning the copyright..
 

For those who wish to understand the basics of the law regarding copyright, I attach a link which deals with the basics of the law.....(please note that the author of this work has given permission to link to this page)

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
 

The term we should concentate on is 'Fair Use'.......which basically allows use of copyright material – although the exact amount that constitues 'fair use' is a grey area...........I have picked out the following from the above link which I think best describes our usage..........

In addition, while quite often people make incorrect claims of "fair use" it is a still valid and important concept necessary to allow the criticism of copyrighted works and their creators through examples


So I would simply recommend that we err on the side of caution when quoting from or providing links to material (bearing in mind that links to material which break the terms of the copyright laws, are in themselves illegal)

Its great, and often necessary, to validate posts with quotes and links, but please exercise caution using only relevant amounts of others material rather than whole publications or large portions thereof.


Last Edited By: solitaire Jan 8 11 8:27 AM. Edited 1 time.