A question about using materials from blogs

[hartsfieldl1]

Hi Everyone, I'm new to this forum, but I've been reading it for the last week, and I'm very glad it exists. The knowledge base here is truly amazing, and it's great to see a community of writers helping each other and sharing information.

I'm near completion of a nonfiction book about autoimmune diseases and their treatment. Many people blog about these diseases and their experiences with them, and I'd like to use some of the information from these blogs. Is it acceptable to quote from these blogs since they are in the public arena, just as I would quote from any book or journal (giving credit of course) or do I need to ask permission from the bloggers?

Any experience with this or thoughts about it?
Thanks,

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by hartsfieldl1

Hi Everyone, I'm new to this forum, but I've been reading it for the last week, and I'm very glad it exists. The knowledge base here is truly amazing, and it's great to see a community of writers helping each other and sharing information.

I'm near completion of a nonfiction book about autoimmune diseases and their treatment. Many people blog about these diseases and their experiences with them, and I'd like to use some of the information from these blogs. Is it acceptable to quote from these blogs since they are in the public arena, just as I would quote from any book or journal (giving credit of course) or do I need to ask permission from the bloggers?

Any experience with this or thoughts about it?
Thanks,

I would think you'd be better off using citations than directly quoting. Having said that, here's an article that might help you figure out if your use of the material constitutes fair use under copyright law.

[hartsfieldl1]

Thanks for the link--it's an interesting overview. I was planning on citing any information that came from blogs. I want to make sure there isn't any problem in using them as long as I do cite them.

[shibamistress]

As a blogger, and a writer, I'd have SERIOUS issues with anyone using my writing in their writing project without first contacting me and asking permission. This is my work, and while I'm happy to have others read it, it is not out there for other people to use in their own work.

Depending on how much you quote, btw, just citing is not enough to get around plagiarism. More to the point, it's just rude not to contact the person and ask for permission to use their material. Fair use allows you to use some quotations for academic purposes, but you still need to be careful how much you quote.

That said, if you contact bloggers who have written about the issues you are writing about, they might be happy to be interviewed about their experiences, which would be a much better way to go.

eta: I would add that sometimes even for small quotes you need to get permission (and possibly pay a fee) first. I had to get permission to use part of a poem for a epigraph in my second (paper) book, and it cost me $50 to do so. Obviously that will be different with blogs, but what I'm saying is that copyright is pretty complex, actually, and you need to do some research and find out more, and make sure you're very careful using other people's work.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by shibamistress

Depending on how much you quote, btw, just citing is not enough to get around plagiarism.

To clarify, when I suggested a citation, my intent was for hartsfieldl1 to use his own words, and to simply cite where he got his information from, rather than quoting.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by shibamistress

As a blogger, and a writer, I'd have SERIOUS issues with anyone using my writing in their writing project without first contacting me and asking permission. This is my work, and while I'm happy to have others read it, it is not out there for other people to use in their own work.

Depending on how much you quote, btw, just citing is not enough to get around plagiarism. More to the point, it's just rude not to contact the person and ask for permission to use their material. Fair use allows you to use some quotations for academic purposes, but you still need to be careful how much you quote.

That said, if you contact bloggers who have written about the issues you are writing about, they might be happy to be interviewed about their experiences, which would be a much better way to go.

eta: I would add that sometimes even for small quotes you need to get permission (and possibly pay a fee) first. I had to get permission to use part of a poem for a epigraph in my second (paper) book, and it cost me $50 to do so. Obviously that will be different with blogs, but what I'm saying is that copyright is pretty complex, actually, and you need to do some research and find out more, and make sure you're very careful using other people's work.

Actually the reason for such permission being needed for the poem is probably due to how much of a poem is quoted vs. how much of a non-fiction book would be. It all comes down to length. I think the rule is up to 10% can be quoted without needing permission. A page or two of a 200 page book being quoted is one thing, but a poem is usually a lot shorter so you don't have as much that you can quote under fair use laws. 10% of a book is very little, but 10% of a poem is quite a lot. I would think with how short blog entries are they would fall under the same rules as for poems. And even if they are just sitting there on the web I would think that blog entries count as being published material as well. I mean if you publish a short story on the web most publishers consider the 1st electronic rights to have been used (or at least that's what I understand) so I can only imagine that blog posts count as being published material as well.

[Tome Keeper]

I think that as long as you cite the source then legally your fine. However, common decency is to ask permission from the blogger and at the same time clarify how they wish to be cited.

[hartsfieldl1]

Originally Posted by shibamistress

As a blogger, and a writer, I'd have SERIOUS issues with anyone using my writing in their writing project without first contacting me and asking permission. This is my work, and while I'm happy to have others read it, it is not out there for other people to use in their own work.

Depending on how much you quote, btw, just citing is not enough to get around plagiarism. More to the point, it's just rude not to contact the person and ask for permission to use their material. Fair use allows you to use some quotations for academic purposes, but you still need to be careful how much you quote.

That said, if you contact bloggers who have written about the issues you are writing about, they might be happy to be interviewed about their experiences, which would be a much better way to go.

eta: I would add that sometimes even for small quotes you need to get permission (and possibly pay a fee) first. I had to get permission to use part of a poem for a epigraph in my second (paper) book, and it cost me $50 to do so. Obviously that will be different with blogs, but what I'm saying is that copyright is pretty complex, actually, and you need to do some research and find out more, and make sure you're very careful using other people's work.

That's why I asked the question. I'm an academic and in scholarly writing we constantly quote each other, and we never ask for permission unless it's some sort of huge quote. The idea of scholarship is that each scholar builds on what has been done before. In the academic world we would not seriously consider asking another writer before quoting his or her work, and we would absolutely never pay someone for the "privilege" of referring to their work or quoting a passage. It's just assumed that once your work is "public" other people are going to use it. In fact, you hope other people will use it.

I was trying to figure out if the protocol for quoting would be different with blogs. People are sharing information, and in many ways the Web is like the world of academia where people share information. Honestly, it never occurred to me that it would be rude to quote from someone's blog, but I did want to make sure that if I did so, I would do according to whatever protocol is being developed for this.

I can understand a poet whose work is under copyright asking for a fee--especially if it were a short poem. I'm just trying to figure out the boundaries that are being developed with blogs. I know I see blogs quoted all the time in editorials and other writing, and I wanted to do it correctly if I decided to do it.

[hartsfieldl1]

Originally Posted by Tome Keeper

I think that as long as you cite the source then legally your fine. However, common decency is to ask permission from the blogger and at the same time clarify how they wish to be cited.

This is what I was thinking of doing; since bloggers are in the public arena, I'm sure that legally there would be no problem with quoting a blog as long as it was sourced properly, and the quotation or paraphrase (which is probably what it would mostly be) adhered to the fair practices conventions. I was wondering if there were restrictions, and if it would be polite in this non-academic context to ask a blogger if he or she minded being quoted. Legally it wouldn't matter, but I was more concerned with protocol. I'm not even sure I'm going to do this, but I wondered if there were accepted practices and how people who blog would feel about being quoted.

If I were a blogger (and I'm not), I would like to see my work quoted by other people. It would bring attention to my blog, and that's what most of the blogging community seems to want.

The easiest solution would be to ask the blogger though, and if the blogger objected or wanted to be paid, to just leave that blogger out. It's not as though there's a drought in the blog landscape.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by hartsfieldl1

The easiest solution would be to ask the blogger though, and if the blogger objected or wanted to be paid, to just leave that blogger out. It's not as though there's a drought in the blog landscape.

I think you're right that this is the path of least resistance.

[shibamistress]

Re: the length of quotations--I only used two lines of a poem for an epigraph for the book as a whole. I was actually surprised I had to pay for the quote, because it did seem to be fair use. It wasn't the poet who set the price...it was the publisher of the original book.

So I'm not sure if it had to do with length or not, but I was surprised to discover that you do sometimes have to pay for quotations....

Originally Posted by hartsfieldl1

This is what I was thinking of doing; since bloggers are in the public arena, I'm sure that legally there would be no problem with quoting a blog as long as it was sourced properly, and the quotation or paraphrase (which is probably what it would mostly be) adhered to the fair practices conventions. I was wondering if there were restrictions, and if it would be polite in this non-academic context to ask a blogger if he or she minded being quoted. Legally it wouldn't matter, but I was more concerned with protocol. I'm not even sure I'm going to do this, but I wondered if there were accepted practices and how people who blog would feel about being quoted.

If I were a blogger (and I'm not), I would like to see my work quoted by other people. It would bring attention to my blog, and that's what most of the blogging community seems to want.

The easiest solution would be to ask the blogger though, and if the blogger objected or wanted to be paid, to just leave that blogger out. It's not as though there's a drought in the blog landscape.

I'm an academic too, but probably in a different field (creative writing) where the rules on quoted material are sometimes different.

I think, though, with your academic background, you'll do just fine, as you know how to quote for fair use, etc. I was thinking more of people who don't really know the difference between doing it for fair use and actually using huge swathes of something and calling it quoting The reason I said I'd be annoyed, though, if someone didn't contact me is because I often am trying out things on the blog that will later end up in a published essay or book, and I'd prefer not to have someone else using that. I'd feel differently if someone contacted me first, however.

[hartsfieldl1]

Originally Posted by shibamistress

Re: the length of quotations--I only used two lines of a poem for an epigraph for the book as a whole. I was actually surprised I had to pay for the quote, because it did seem to be fair use. It wasn't the poet who set the price...it was the publisher of the original book.

So I'm not sure if it had to do with length or not, but I was surprised to discover that you do sometimes have to pay for quotations....



I'm an academic too, but probably in a different field (creative writing) where the rules on quoted material are sometimes different.

I think, though, with your academic background, you'll do just fine, as you know how to quote for fair use, etc. I was thinking more of people who don't really know the difference between doing it for fair use and actually using huge swathes of something and calling it quoting The reason I said I'd be annoyed, though, if someone didn't contact me is because I often am trying out things on the blog that will later end up in a published essay or book, and I'd prefer not to have someone else using that. I'd feel differently if someone contacted me first, however.

I can understand why you wouldn't want someone using things that you might want to use later. I would feel the same way. My appointment is in English and Environmental Studies, and I work with people in creative writing but don't do that myself.

[Worldwalker]

In general, blogs are more like newspapers or magazines than academic papers.

An academic is paid for teaching and research, and papers are sort of a by-product of the latter. A blogger is paid (whether in cash or egoboo) for writing; their writing is all they have. Copying large parts of academic's work is more a matter of acknowledging his expertise in research, while doing the same to a blogger is taking the thing he needs to make a living from, or to gain fame from, or whatever it is to that particular individual. It's not just a summary and a promotion of the research he's been doing; it's the work product itself. And it's just plain not fair to take that without even asking.

By the way, there is no set percentage on fair use. That's one of its many flaws.

[hartsfieldl1]

How about another twist on this? What about referring to responses other readers make to a blog? The blog would be mentioned, but it wouldn't use any of the blogger's words of ideas?

[Penforhire]

My thought is unless you're giving away your book freely you'd want to ask permission. As far as "public arena," does blog content have less protection than, say, your own photos you post online? Those are still yours unless you otherwise assign their rights.

To me a blog is merely an online journal format. I wrote a popular motorcycle restoration blog and earned nothing from it, as a labor of love. I let plenty of people point to it over the years but would look at legal remedies against anyone who lifts material from it for commercial purposes.