What Is It With Information?

[Fantail_John]

Come on guys whats the information regarding copyright information on here this forum? I see lot of people getting information from books websites and passing it on to other people and even give good websites to get more information on fish keeping, as long you put a copyright to the information and the website is this not copyright as it saying you had not writen it and the information as come from the owner? Let me know as i see even moderators leaving website links and information from websites and other sources and not leaving a copyright, and the person how sent me the PM get your information right please

 

[Bignose]

First of all from the RULES YOU AGREED TO WHEN YOU BECAME A MEMBER: (seen here http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules and there is a link at the top of the forum)

You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you, by this bulletin board, or written permission is given by the copyright holder. Plagiarism will not be tolerated, please give credit to the author if another person’s material is used.

You copied and pasted, verbatim, a work that was written by someone else. You even copied the copyright from the original page!

Here is one definition of plagiarism:

There are four common forms of plagiarism:

* The duplication of an author's words without quotation marks and accurate references or footnotes.
* The duplication of author's words or phrases with footnotes or accurate references, but without quotation marks.
* The use of an author's ideas in paraphrase without accurate references or footnotes.
* Submitting a paper in which exact words are merely rearranged even though footnoted.

Now, and watch how what I just quoted is NOT plagiarism, I got this from this page: http/definitions.uslegal.com/p/plagiarism/ entitled "Plagiarism Law & Legal Definition".

The link to the page provides the proper citation of where I got that copy and paste, and I did not copy and paste the entire work, just a small portion of it.

The law goes allow fair use of quotes and portions of works to be copied and pasted verbatim, if proper citation is given. What I did above it fine, because I only used a small portion, and I cited where I got it from.

Also, had I wanted to, I could have re-written the text in my own words, and then they become mine instead of the original author's. I would have still provided a citation to the original author, because their work would have helped me write my work, but I wouldn't have attributed any quotes to the original author.

Plagiarism of any kind (copying text or pictures or videos) will NOT be tolerated on this forum. The forum rules are clear, and as someone who has written published works before, if someone were to copy and paste what I wrote and not give me credit for it, I would be very upset. Chances are that no one is going to prosecute anyone on a little forum like this for a copy and paste job. But, that doesn't make it right. We all know that it is wrong to take credit -- even if "credit" is just having your username next to a block of text -- for something someone else did and not give the original author the credit. It really comes down to showing other people and their work the respect they deserve.

 

[nmonks]

I see lot of people getting information from books websites and passing it on to other people

Correct. Anyone can read a book, ponder its contents, and then regurgitate their opinions about it onto paper or a web page. That's fine. Copyright law comes into play where one person's writings are simply copied and pasted into some else's. That tends not to be an issue in forums because anyone who engages in a discussion here is expecting to have their words replied to by someone else. So there's a conversation going on.

as long you put a copyright to the information and the website is this not copyright as it saying you had not writen it and the information as come from the owner?

Not quite. You need to ask permission before you copy and paste work from one web site into another. Many web sites are only to happy to have you do something along these lines, perhaps pasting an introductory paragraph and then adding a link that takes the reader on to the original web site for more. That's the nature of the web, and it's a key way sites build up their readership. Many news sites, such as Huffington Post for example, operate in precisely this way, "aggregating" news stories from other news sources. But if you cut and paste the entire contents, it doesn't matter whether you credit the original writer because the fact is the original web site is losing readership. If that site relies on page hits for revenue, that's a real issue.

Let me know as i see even moderators leaving website links and information from websites and other sources and not leaving a copyright

I frequently mention information from another web site, and then add or incorporate a link to the original site. But the key thing, the good manners part, is where you say, "here's an opinion different to yours, they're saying X rather than Y, and if you go to this other site, you can find out more." This way you're being fair to everyone. You're offering information here, but you're also allowing that other site to attract a reader they mightn't have had otherwise.

Cheers, Neale