Need info regarding web content

[BlueState]

If anyone has any experience I would appreciate some information. I was thinking of creating a website along the lines of Buzzflash or Drudge (but non-political). In other words the content would consist of links to other sources for selected news articles. What are the legal issues to be concerned with? Does know of anybody know of a source for info in this regard?

Thanks in advance for any input.

[lfairban]

1. Fair Use doctrine.

I believe what you are talking about is the Fair Use doctrine. If you go by the strict interpritation of the copyright laws, you can't even use a Xerox to make a copy of an article in the paper.

I don't believe that copyright applies to links also called web addresses or URLs. That would be like trying to enforce the copyright on the phone book when someone jots their number on a piece of paper for a friend. People put stuff on the web generally because the want people to look at it, and will appreciate your efforts to direct them there. It may be technically against the rules to make a copy of an article on your own server, but I doubt that is what you are planning.

Copying a few lines of an article to demonstrate the content should not be a problem, nor should a summery of a few lines. Until recently, I would not put pictures in my web pages by inserting the URL, unless they are my pictures of course. The two that I did insert, I was reasonably sure that the author wanted them distributed as widely as possible.

Anything specific that you are worried about?

[BlueState]

2. thanks lfairban!

I don't have any specific worries. I was sort of assuming that what you were saying would be true. I knew to be careful on using issues and actually including article text in any way that would indicate that it was original.

What I envision is not unlike what you have on your site, simply using links to material using the original titles.

[electricmonk]

3. Check this page out at Hotscripts.com

link:www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Web_Fetching/index.html|Web Fetching]

Dozens of scripts that do the dirty work for you on indexing links and stories.