Is This Legal...

Crediting a site for content you've stolen is not acceptable. Any content you use should have the owner's permission.

Copyright protects the owner/author's content as soon as it is published.

Steve

Here's some interesting info.:

Brent

Actually you can do that in the form of video and in the specific category that allow to publish it. However this may not work for all of countries. And also not all contents/websites can be taken for this as well. You better check with the original author/publisher to get written permission.

A video won't work... I would like to do content.

"And also not all contents/websites can be taken for this as well." which ones can't ?! The webpages I would be combining from would be from single owner / smaller webpages.

Becky

Becky,

One technique that works great it to create a "top 100 ____ websites" post. Do a little bit of homework, write a brief summary of the site, and of course link to the site. You can also create an award (fiverr) and contact the website owners that you are linking to and offer then the award and give them permission to use on their own site.

Chris

Best idea is - don't use other people's work product. One thing I see on this forum is many new marketers looking for ways to 'insert' themselves into someone else's program/business. There are international copyright agreements - and there are quite a few site owners who don't put up with copyright violations.

Some of the ideas in this thread could cause you grief...learn for yourself about copyright protection...the info is available free from multiple legal sites online.
You were smart to ask the question in this thread...but don't take legal advice from a public forum.

There are marketers who understand and respect copyright of others - there are those who think they are so smart they've found loopholes - and there are a few who think the rules don't apply to them. Comes down to which you want to be - and how much risk you are willing to take.

When it comes to legalities online, my own practice has been 'when in doubt, don't'.

Why don't you do content curation instead?

It's perfectly legal and acceptable and can get you loads of traffic, both organic and from social media.

However, curation doesn't mean swiping another person's content word for word.

Usually, you grab a few sentences, then add a few sentences of your own commentary, and link to the original article.

Because you are creating an "opinion" piece, this is generally acceptable under fair use. However, there are still rules. For instance, certain images are off limits. Some news sites and popular blogs buy licenses to use these images, and if you just use them, you can be sued for copyright infringement.

The good news is there are plenty of places to get great images for your blog posts. Sites like Pixabay allow you to use any of their images.

You can also find great content to curate from sites like ScoopIt. There are also lots of other sites to get content you can use in your posts like slideshows, infographics, videos, PDFs, audio clips, etc.

Curation is a little more work, but it's ethical and it will be rewarding, not to mention bring you more traffic.

What you are trying to do now is not a good idea. Several members have told you the same. Hopefully you'll decide to do the right thing.

I think Sniply would be best.

Great input everyone! Very much appreciated.

Just because you want to steal from single owner/smaller web pages doesn't mean it's not stealing. Is it somehow more acceptable to steal food from a Mom-and-Pop bodega than from Walgreen's?

Or are you trying to do a risk assessment?

The only content you can freely take is public domain content, or content that specifically publishes a license that allows that. The Creative Commons CC0 license is one such. CC also has licenses that allow for use with attribution, but there are several levels of permission with their own requirements.

If you scrape the feed and republish it, it's still copyright infringement unless you have explicit written permission.

RSS feeds were meant to be collected for private viewing, much like TV shows. You can't take a football game, record your TV screen and post it on your site or you will get sued.

Remember, attribution and permission are totally different things. You can't substitute attribution for permission, anymore than you can substitute salt for sugar in a cookie recipe.

You can use articles from ezinearticles.com if you abide by their terms.

You have to include the whole article and give credit to the author.

Terms of Service For Publishers Who Wish To Reprint Any Content From EzineArticles.com

I also feel like some of you don't really understand what i want to do...
Let's use the example of free samples. Many webpages list free samples that other companies are giving away. However, people who love to sign up for FREE samples of products have to go to many webpages to gather what free samples they might want to sign up for. This is because all the little webpage that list Free sample of products create there own list.

What I would like to do .... is take ALL the webpages that are list free samples and put them ALL in one place. That way it would be like a one stop shop for people looking for free samples. That way they don't have to go to a million different webpages looking for the best free samples.

Again, my webpage is not about free samples of products but I just thought that was a good example of what I am trying to do.

As you can see for something like this ezinearticles.com or Sniply won't work...

That's because you have been so vague about your exact plan.

Put yourself in the shoes of the site owner whose content you're taking without asking. Would you want some stranger potentially drawing traffic (and maybe eventually sales commissions) away from your site to his site without your permission?

Steve

You seem to be looking for a way to use other peoples content and sites to promote yourself/your site/your business....

So - you want people to go to YOUR site rather than to the various sites of other marketers who took the time to find 'free samples' (or whatever) and create content about the products. Do you not see the problem?

You need to do some google searches and learn about copyright (and trademark, too, while you are at it)....learn what is and is not acceptable when 'using' someone else's material.

One thing for sure - there are marketers who get your site shut down if you use their content without permission. I've done it and I know others have, too. We work too hard to let someone else take our content for their own gain.

Look at it from the other site owners point of view - instead of justifying what you want to do. Sounds simple - but sometimes it's hard do that.