Copyright and RErockstar.com
What’s mine isn’t yours.
As RErockstar.com has grown over the past year, I have watched readership grow larger and seen the effects of having a blog that creates traffic and generates business. It’s been an exciting journey for me to say the least and I love watching this (some days frustrating) labor of love grow from a tiny little site in the middle of the enormous internet to what it is today. Everyday I wake up and want to push it even further. Of course, with that readership comes a certain fame…people like my blog and look to it for real estate info in San Antonio as well as nationally.
With that new found glory comes something else, a bit of a problem. Wholesale copying of posts and thoughts from these very pages. That’s right, we’re talking about copyright issues. Call it plagiarism, copyright infringement, theft, or whatever term you’d like. An entire post on someone else’s site that appears to be written by them, but instead was tapped out letter by letter by yours truly. I’ve noticed quite a bit of it lately and it bugs me.
Having something I’ve written viewed as a great post about a topic is absolutely flattering, don’t get me wrong, I love that thought. What bugs me is that someone out there didn’t have the time, nerve, thought, or courtesy to say, “Hey Matt, mind if I reprint this?”
My site, my policy.
After all this thinking, I thought perhaps I should spell my thoughts out (as far as copyright on this site goes). We can argue all day about what is legal and within the defined laws of U.S. copyright (ask two people and you’ll get two different answers) and as I’m not a lawyer, I’m not here to argue what falls within the definition of copyright.
So here it is, RErockstar.com’s copyright law (not U.S. law…my law):
If you like something enough on RErockstar.com to copy it, by all means go ahead. Yes, I said go ahead. There’s a catch though. If you use it, please add the following (or at least something close to it): “This article, written by Matt Stigliano, Realtor®, originally appeared on RErockstar.com.” Make “RErockstar.com” a link back to the article or at least the site. (If you don’t know how to make links, you probably shouldn’t be copying things on the internet.) That’s all there is to it.
Of course, if you do copy an entire post, you might want to watch out for photos (as many of them are not mine – that’s what the “photo courtesy of…” is all about), housing market graphs (my market reports are not there for you to copy to your site), or anything attributed to someone other than me. Copy those and don’t attribute them back to their original authors and you will have to deal with those people on your own.
That’s it, simple as that. Thanks for all your help in growing this site and sticking with me for so long. We’ve got a lot more to cover and tons more to do as we continue to make this “Your all access pass to San Antonio real estate.” (Don’t go copying that! Haha.)
photo courtesy of Horia Varlan
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Comments
Great idea to come up with your own site’s policy aka “Matt’s Law” for copyright, etc. It still amazes me how many people think if it’s on the internet somewhere – they can copy it. (images & text).
Kim – I think the problem is that there’s so much contradictory information about whether it’s right, wrong, legal, or illegal. Just search through the pages of ActiveRain for a few minutes on that topic. Yikes!
I don’t mind it, because I like to share. I do mind it when someone else gets the credit, because I work hard at what I do.
Wait, I just saw this on Kim’s blog! (kidding)
I have a plug-in from “Tynt” that is to create backlinks when people copy your stuff. Hm, I don’t know the first thing about AR but it just lost some cred with that comment of yours.
Doug – For whatever reason, copyright issues and things like “fair use” and the 20% rule are constantly thrown about by people who assume the position of authority on copyright law. Having come from the musical side of things, I learned to leave copyright law to the lawyers and publishers.
I actually love the thought of sharing (and being flattered by being shared), so to me, it just made sense to tell the world they can have it, they just need to give credit where credit is due (recently saw an article of mine attributed to someone else).
Heading off to check out Tynt now.
Doug – I should mention I now use Tynt and love it.
Awesome, Matt! I am currently coming up with my “own law” on copyright as well. I will definitely have to check out Tynt!
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