Misquoting News

[Loridan]

Hello all,

I am building a site with a yellow journalism flavor(www.otherag.com). My question is regarding quoting news. I have the site set up so that I can enter news stories and give the source. What I do not know, is what measures need to be taken from a legal standpoint. What is considered plagerism or copyright infringement? Is there a certain way that I need to quote?
There was a big write up on slashdot attacking bloggers for improperly quoting news, unfortunately no solutions were given.

Another thing that I would like to do is misquote news in an obvious and humorous way. For example: "Kentucky Derby Winner, Barbaro injured his leg in the race due to a rock climbing accident that occured earlier this month."

Again, Im uncertain the legality of this. A disclaimer perhaps?

Thanks for the help,
Dorian

[KDLA]

Posting the news story on your page would be copyright infringement. Linking to the story would not be -- unless you are using frames, and when the link is clicked, your frame hides the source identifier of the news story.

Consult these articles I wrote regarding copyright:
http://kdla.ky.gov/libsupport/libwebhelp/copyright.htm
http://kdla.ky.gov/onlinepubs/selectionotes/octdec2005/web-copyright.htm
http://kdla.ky.gov/onlinepubs/onepage/1005.htm

(Please note, these articles are based on research; always consult a legal professional for a definitive answer.)

Good Luck -
KDLA

[Loridan]

According to those sources:

To be able to file suit against you, the copyright owner has to prove that

* your usage was of a commercial nature
For example, using copyrighted “Clifford” clip art to advertise a children’s program that requires a fee with registration
* your usage was not transformative, meaning that any modification you might have done didn’t add something new or change the character of the original work
For example, a screenshot of another organization’s published article was posted to your site. In order to reproduce a full page, including the critical content, the website owner must grant permission.

So let me ask this. If I take a legit story, and flavor it with lots of funny bullcrap, it is transformative correct? And therefor it is no longer infringement?

[KDLA]

If the bullcrap is your opinion, then you can post it.

If you take someone else's opinion and fill it full of bullcrap, then you've got copyright infringement -- their opinion (an original thought/work) is copyrighted, and can't be transformed.

As to the news itself, those are just factual statements, and aren't subject to copyright. It's just the wording of the article which is copyrighted; thus, if you posted it verbatim, then you'd be stealing copyrighted material.