Blockquoting in blogging
Marcia Oddi penned a post on plagiarism Monday, calling it “a serious problem with students at all levels of schooling.” She concludes with this:
A fairly recent addition to the law student plagiarism equation is the fact that many law students now have blogs, or contribute to blogs. What should be the ramifications if a law student’s blog, not connected to the school, is found to include numerous incidents of plagiarim? Is this within the purview of the law school? An interesting hypothetical.
An equally interesting question, but one that’s not as hypothetical, is what should be the ramifications, if any, of blogs that frequently reproduce entire newspaper articles and editorials on their blog. Is this within the purview of the bar?
To use Marcia’s blog as an example, in this post she republishes an entire editorial from the Munster (NW Indiana) Times, and she is not alone in that practice. A quick look at Section 107 of the Copyright Law seems to suggest that this may not be “fair use” under federal copyright law. Kimberlee Weatherall and Eugene Volokh seem to agree. Precedent also reinforces the notion that fair use is intended to permit the borrowing of portions of a work, not complete works. (Religious Technology Center v. Lerma, 40 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1569 (E.D. Va. 1996).)
In sum, excerpts and blockquotes are probably fine, particularly with links to the original source. But a total republication may, even with a link to the original source, violate both federal copyright laws and the newspaper‘s terms of use. Some newspapers are already clamping down on this common blog practice.
