Using content from other sites.

Hi,

If Lang or anyone else is lifting text and images from other sites, please provide a link back to the original page as a courtesy to the site where you got it from and it makes it less confusing for the people reading it here.

Better still if you think it is interesting enough to cut and paste/copy from a site, don't cut & paste or copy the images, just write a up sentence or two explaining what is of interest and provide the link and let people read it in context for themselves. Google penalises sites in its searches where it finds the content is copied, images and text, from other sites to encourage sites to have original content and reduce IP and copyright theft.

Terry

Terry

I know you are doing the best for the forum but I guess more than 50% of the images appearing have come from somewhere else without acknowledgement. If you look up a specific subject and click on "images" in Google search you will often find the same image on 10 or more different sites with its origin long lost.

A great deal of information from other sites and forums is only relevant for a few sentences or paragraphs and it is pretty optimistic expecting a link to the whole 2 or 200 page article to be ploughed through by casual readers. I have been writing short articles for various club magazines and quite a few reports for Government departments, businesses and other organisations for 50 years. I have seen many of my and other Truck Forum members posts from here on other sites including commercial ones. I have seen many articles I have written over the years appear in various magazines, newsletters and specific subject sites and forums - almost none acknowledged and, not a few times, actually titled "by John Smith"

Wikipedia, by far the world's largest go-to quick reference site , lives on lifted information with their best effort on contentious or "Factual" information being a small footnote with "Verification required", but they still put it in without that verification. If you put something on a public forum regardless if it is in a magazine, a report on paper or in one of the many electronic forms you wanted it to go public. Once you throw a stick into the stream you have lost control and it gets swept down river for everybody to see as it floats by and writing your name on it is no guarantee that anybody will read it or even try. Trying to control it is like film stars selling their souls to create publicity then complaining about the paparazzi when it does not suit them.

Only speaking for myself I only click on a link put up by a forum member if I am really interested but if they go to the trouble of extracting the relevant information either copy and paste or rewriting it in their own words - exactly the same immorality - it certainly gets read and generates responses from others so much more. I have noticed somebody just putting a link as their entire post content sometimes kills the discussion as it is often to the above-mentioned 200 page Government Regulation and not to the relevant sentences or paragraphs.

I really enjoy finding as much different stuff as possible on any and all subjects that might interest our membership to keep the pot boiling, particularly hunting out information that may expand an enquiry or solve a mystery. Much of it holds little or no interest to my specific situation and I am always learning from my ignorant search from the smarter forum blokes responses. More than once I have been rightly told I am talking crap but the beauty of that is it generates the right answer from our huge pool of experts. Without cut and paste I, and several others I suspect, could not be bothered spending time on rewriting or even precis stuff we have found.

I have nothing to do with Facebook or bulk emails where something someone has written or filmed goes "viral" to a million people in 24 hours. 999,999 of the people who copy it and pass it on have absolutely no idea where it came from and nobody gets the credit.

I think the horse has long bolted on any form of reproduction control for non-commercial purposes but if you want to stop copy and paste on this forum that is fine. You do a great job and deserve credit for making it as usable and friendly as it is.

Lang

YES


WotHeSed
LOL
cya

Gryphon wrote:

Hi, Google penalises sites in its searches where it finds the content is copied, images and text, from other sites to encourage sites to have original content and reduce IP and copyright theft.Terry

Terry ,this is in no way directed at you but wouldn't Google's time be better employed penalising Chinese knockoffs that infringe worldwide patents?

I guess a public forum such as this is not the place to share publicly available information and ideas after all.
Always some-one gotta chip in ...

Dunno about all of this

To me I don't really see any drama unless someone is trying say it's there's own content and its not and I dont think any of the people here are doing that

If we arent careful we can end up on a slippery slope of political correctness in a world thats already mad enough
To me I dont see any harm tootling along as we always have, this has been bought up before on here and we all kept on doing pretty much the same
Struth I have that much stuff I have saved over the years for future entertainment and I have zero hope of remembering what I save yesterday, I know for a while I tried recording the details of were I flogged stuff from but if that jokers flogged it from elsewhere for our entertainment it gets very bogged down very quickly and pretty soon no one is sharing anything for fear of stuffing up

And Google I'm pretty sure have bigger fish to fry than a truck forum in Australia

Paul

I'm a Moderator on another, larger site. Copy and paste, or a commentless link, is not permitted there because of the ramifications that could occur, from Google or legal action for breach of copyright.
The owner of the forum is the person in the firing line for copyright infringement, not the author.
On advice, we have taken the approach that if copy and pasting a link to the site of origin must be supplied, along with some discussion. This gives the argument of fair use should proceedings be threatened.
None of us wants to see the site fold, or the owner bankrupted for our action. It's not hard to include the link and a short, relivant comment.

Fair call


By doing this did it effect the content level, the reason I ask is forums arent as popular as they were say 10 years ago

Paul

Paul, I think the fall in popularity of fora in general is down to the younger generations' need for the instant gratification offered by Facebook, Instagram et al. Those type of platform are easier for trolls and bullies to be disrespectful, anonymously.
Look at this forum, lots of old (and a few like yourself, not so old) farts, as many differing opinions, yet each member is mature enough to accept and respect other's right to another view.

V8Ian

I can understand your caution but I have been constantly involved in club committees claiming you can not do this or can not do that because" we'll all be runed" said Hanrahan. This is happening so much now that events - particularly small and impromptu events - and clubs are dying like flies or have their original aims modified to unrecognizable structures. The costs involved in unreasonable caution are often crippling. Events are cancelled, huge worthless insurances are purchased and the whole operation is hobbled.

Can anyone show where any volunteer organisation committeeman has been sued to bankruptcy for anything to do with copyright infringement on a web site, forum or club magazine? Never happened. Worst case would be a cease and desist letter. They can not just pluck a million dollars out of the air and send you a bill they have to prove an actual substantive loss and preferably your gain and any case will be fought on those actual claimed amounts. Being miffed does not count.

Unless I discover the formula for making gold out of lead after accidently stumbling on the Top Secret site of the BHP Research Department and copy and paste it on the forum under a "Handy Hints" title the chances of a community special interest forum actually finishing up in court for a copyright infringement is somewhere less than zero.

Just as an aside. If your committee alone is liable for legal proceedings you should immediately look at your structure as I believe most clubs now are set up to have all members, committee or not, equally liable. This does not involve the members or protect a committeeman, or any member, acting personally illegally or absconding with the funds.

As Franklin Roosevelt said, "There is nothing to fear but fear itself" (Please note I attributed the quote)