It’s hard not to take it personally, when a realtor client ingores advice and invites disaster. I am not one of those web developers that simply hands a client their project, and then disappears. I work with my clients, and take a measure of pride when they do things right, and their business grows.
Today’s rant: Violating Copyright Laws.
You might have thought it was easy, if not laughable, to have cheated on your high school examn. There you get a slap on the wrist. Today, when you post anything from someone else’s blog, listing, or newspaper article without permission you run the very real risk of violating copyright laws.
Unlike downloading music or movies for free (another violation), when you repost other’s protected materials on your web site, they can and will find you. You see ‘content’ is readable by technology. Most companies that use the interent to post their content, employ professional copy protection companies to search for illegal usage. The biggest users of this and other technologies are newspapers.
What does a reposted article or photo cost: Normally, a news entity will allow you full republishing rights for a specific time period for a fee ranging from $35 to $400 dollars, per article. That’s right – you have to pay for it. Not every article can be reposted, because like you a news organization may have paid someone else for those very same rights. Getting caught can be expensive. In the US, copyright fines start at $2500 per item.
Hint, hint to the realtor in question: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/info/webrules.html
So you can’t copy anything, unless the site you are grabbing from specifically states otherwise, or has a statement like this:
- Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
- A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License“.
Scary, yes. Sorry but the excuse – I didn’t know – won’t protect you.
Are there sources of ‘free’ articles I can post? Answer: Yes. Check your office website, local Real Estate Board, Realtor.org, and Realtor.ca for literally hundreds of great information sources.
I can already hear the ‘But, But, But’s…”. For more information, you really need to check out Brad Templetons excellent article The 10 Big Myths of copyrights explained. A great article, and yes – he gives permission for me to link to his full article.
Filed under: Copyright Law(ish), General Realtor Rants, Simple SEO Techniques | Tagged: Copyright, Copyright Law(ish), Realtor
[...] Relevant Content – it’s hard to believe, but yes many of your web sites contain virtually no information of value to anyone. So add something of value. Realtor.org has hundreds of articles you can republish in their entirety. Check out my articles on reposting others information. [...]