Referencing another writer's content

[brucieron]

Hello,

I am working on setting up an affiliate site on spirituality and meditation and am looking for some guidance on what I can and cannot do when it comes to referencing content from another author. I plan to create a free report to give to new subscribers that includes content from spiritual teachers such as Eckhart Tolle and Ken Wilber, and I will include their name and a link to their site so the reader can learn more about them. I would be using content from books these author's have published, and likely some content from their websites as well.

Would it be alright to do this so long as I clearly state that the content is not my own, and would I have to reference it in a specific way if I am using content from a published work?

Thanks,
Alex

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Alex,

Great question and there are not necessarily any firm and clear cut guidelines.

Google: <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;q=fair+use+of+copyrighted+material&amp;sourceid=navclient-ff&amp;rlz=1B3GGIC_en___US345&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;aq=t&amp;oq=fair+use">fair use of copyrighted material</a> to try to get some ideas.

I quote a lot of blogs and news stories and my rule of thumb is only to use 2 paragraphs and at least one link to the source. Occasionally if it's someone I know I'll quote more (3 paragraphs usually the max) but then I'll usually link to them a couple times - one in the title at the beginning, then again at the end of the quote with a MORE link.

My guess is that quoting from books you'd need to be even more careful than with web sites, because they may have lawyers just looking to get involved with copyright violations.

 

[brucieron]

Thanks Linda! You mentioned that you sometimes include a MORE link. Can you explain what that is?

 

[Linda Buquet]

I can't find one I've done lately to show you but it would just be like below, with both the title link and the more link going to the article.

Title of Post

"Quoted text here." More...

 

[djbaxter]

Here's an example from one of my posts this morning:

http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...optimization-tactic-low-high-competition.html