Reply #40: they knew what they were doing. copying an article w/o permission is in no one's definition of fair [View All]

[Hannah Bell]

use.

It was on his blog/website, it's under copyright.


10 Big Myths about copyright explained


1) "If it doesn't have a copyright notice, it's not copyrighted."

This was true in the past, but today almost all major nations follow the Berne copyright convention. For example, in the USA, almost everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not. The default you should assume for other people's works is that they are copyrighted and may not be copied unless you know otherwise. There are some old works that lost protection without notice, but frankly you should not risk it unless you know for sure.

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


"Fair use is generally a short EXCERPT and almost always attributed."

They copied the entire article, without permission, and attributed it to someone else.

There's NO possibility they "didn't understand the law".