We don't expect posters to be expert in copyright law. None of us are.

We are only trying to be good citizens and keep corporate lawyers away. If somebody violates copyright and we don't stop it, believe me we will get letters, then warnings, then legal action if it continues.

You will never get in trouble for using a little of a work under the fair use portion of the copyright law, but you must attribute it. In our case, we want you to link to the original work if the material is from the internet.

Now, how do you determine what is copyrighted?

It is quite easy. Everything written or published is copyrighted the instant it is created. If a work carried the copyright notice, such as the (c) 2009, or the "c" inside the circle, or if it doesn't, it is still copyrighted.

The next step in copyrighting is registration with the Library of Congress. If the work carries the copyright notice and is registered and you steal it, you face treble damages when you lose the case.

We don't want to pay damages over copyright infringement. Authors are entitled to credit and to any revenue resulting from their work. In the case of the internet, the revenue could come from advertisements appearing on the original web page or from subscriptions to the web site. If a reader is kept away from the ads, the publisher can make a case for losing revenue.

Then the publishers' lawyers will come searching for the copyright thief. And I suspect the original poster (that would be the member here) will be in the line of fire and risks losing money.

This all sounds very scary. It isn't. Just don't steal.

Post, paraphrase, link, and have fun. Just don't steal.

I suspect we have some greater legal minds here who know copyright far better than I do. If you do, don't be reluctant to contribute to this, or to correct it.

Here is a little side light, as if you haven't had enough to read yet.

It is the same with trademarks. Use the word Coke in lower case referring to a soft drink or cola and here come the lawyers. Using coke for the street drug is O.K. with everybody. Coca Cola has people out there reading everything, yes everything, and those readers inform Coca Cola when Coke appear lower case. Then the lawyers write us letters.

Companies do that to diligently protect their registered trade marks. If they don't they will lose them. Some that were trademarks and that have been lost include aspirin, cellophane, crock pot and escalator. There are a lot. They were used commonly so long that they became generic.

One closer to us here is Realtor. We talk about lot here about buying and selling real estate. You can write "real estate agent" or "real estate broker," but if you write "Realtor" it must be capitalized.