Article Usage

Intellectual Property

All of my material on this website, including all of its sub-sections, are Copyright© Doug Beaumont.

Copying someone's personal work without their consent is considered intellectual theft by the laws of the land. Thus, taking legal action against such persons would not violate either 1 Cor. 6:1-8 or Mt. 18:15-17. No material from any page may be published, reprinted, or edited, whether for profit or non-profit, without my consent. For more information on Copyright laws see (10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained).

Permission

Short excerpts may be used so long as they are clearly cited and linked back to www.dougbeaumont.org. That said, if you would like to use an entire article for some greater good I simply ask that you make a request by emailing me at:

Fair Use

The above considerations do not preclude you from quoting from this, or any other, website so long as it falls under the "fair use" rules of copyright law (rules that I have tried to follow in my own use of other's material on this website). The following is from www.copyright.gov (accessed 02.26.08):

Section 107 of the Copyright Law 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:

  1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
  3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
  4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The distinction between “fair use” and infringement may be unclear and not 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 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”

Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work.

(FL-102, Revised July 2006)