Topic: ADVICE:When may copyright material be included in a post?

[Anne]

The basic rule of thumb in the UK is that you can quote portions of pertinent copyright text so long as they are not huge portions - this is called Fair Use - and such text must be correctly and fully cited. Link to terms of Fair Use in the UK: http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p09_fair_use

The problem is, however, that any international forum hits the problem of what's legal in one place may not be so in another, so although the board is hosted in the UK and therefore subject to UK law, its users could be anywhere in the world.

Because of that I feel we are safer in asking for links to be used to copyright texts on other sites, rather than lifting chunks and reposting it here, even with a citation. For copyright printed works we will allow small text excerpts with a full citation but not copyright images or scans of copyright works.

Moderators will use their judgement based on the guidelines drawn up for the board as to when a quote is too large for comfort.