andrebrito wrote on Thu, 05 February 2009 18:07 |
Am I allowed to attach a picture on this forum from a book from a public library ? About copyright issues...
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Yes. First off, whether you own the book or borrowed it from a library is beside the point. Buying the book doesn't give you any more rights to reproduce material than borrowing it from a friend or a library.
If it's your scan, and if you credit the source, it is "fair use" under US copyright law. I don't know if the copyright laws are different in Portugal, but most countries are less strict than the US.
This is an educational forum, and you are not posting to make a direct commercial gain. You are allowed to post small portions of copyrighted works, for scholarly purposes, if you properly cite the source.
The "small portion" criteria (also called "substantiality") is key. If you were to post a scan of a chart that is available as an individual product... then no, it's not allowed. But if you are just posting a scan that is one chart from a long book, sure that's fine.
That's why you'll often see people recommend you not repost entire articles you find on another website. You can post a portion, or some excerpts, then link to the full article.