Using articles from other sources on your website: What you ought to know
We received a great question for the Internet age from an acquaintance of ours who asks:
If we want to post informational articles on our websites what are the legalities?
Can we import articles from magazines, journals or other websites? Can we type sections of books, etc.? And what other things do we need to consider?
The rule is this: copyright rules always apply!
Even if you find an article on a website for free it does not mean you have any rights to use it on your own website.
This also goes for text you find in books. Just as you would not take a passage from a book and publish it elsewhere, you cannot take information directly from a book and put it on your site.
That being said, there are some things you can do:
- Ask the source of the article for permission to use it. If you have been granted permission, all you need to do is put a disclaimer under the article that says something like: “Used with permission by [Name of Magazine]. All rights reserved. Many organizations will give you permission because it helps them get more publicity, especially if you offer to provide a link back to their website.
- Link to the article you wish to feature. Although you might not have permission to reprint the article on your website you can link to an article on another site all you like. You might put something like this: “Here is an article from the ACME website that discusses our topic at hand.” –and then link to the article.
- Paraphrase the article. Remember essay writing from your school days? You can take an article or two as a source and rewrite the information in your own words and then add the titles of the articles at the bottom in a small “References” section. As long as you use your very own words (that are different from the sources you reference), you are free to write whatever you like on your own site.
Hope this helps!