How to obtain Copyright Permission

I notice that some people on Minti are copying and pasting articles from other websites onto Minti. As most of you are aware, if you are not the original author of the article or have not gotten permission from the original author to re-publish it onto Minti, the article is in breach.

I realise it may seem tedious to always have to check whether something is copyrighted or not, or to source for copyright permission - but just imagine if you were an Artist or an Author, and someone ripped off your work and claimed it was theirs? You would feel annoyed. And as a result, some people might even go to such lengths like taking legal action against Minti for Copyright Infringement.

The Two Steps in How to Obtain Copyright Permission

* The First Step: Finding the Copyright Page or Copyright Statement

The first step into finding out whether what you intent to publish onto Minti is whether the organisation you have taken the article from have a Copyright page or statement somewhere on their website.

Some organisations and individuals do allow you to republish works. Please keep in mind that Minti is a commercial website when reading the statement. If the statement says it allows commercial websites or companies to republish their work, you can publish that particular article onto Minti as long as you provide a link of where you took it from. If it says it is not allowed.. well, it just is not allowed.

Please be aware that websites may or may not have this copyright statement. I spoke to an Intellectual Property Attorney last year about whether websites need to have a Copyright Page or a Copyright Statement on their website and he said that you do not because any work you make is your own intellectual property.

* The Second Step: Asking For Permission

If no Copyright Statement is available, you will need to ask for permission to use their works – whether it be you calling the organization up, or emailing them.

When calling or emailing the individual or organization, mention the benefits of the article being on Minti. For example, you could mention that Minti allows parents (like yourself) to publish advice articles that they think are helpful to other parents. The information could be found easier to people online looking for information on that topic, and that you will reference their advice to where you took the information from.

An example email is as follows

Subject: Copyright – article permission

Hi,

I am a member of the website Minti (http://www.minti.com) where parents are allowed to publish their own advice, or advice that is in the public domain if they get permission from the original authors. Minti is a for-profit (commercial) social community website for parents.

I am interested in re-publishing your article from (insert info here) and was hoping to get permission for this before I publish it on Minti.

Some of the benefits of re-publishing the work on Minti are that parents will be able to find your advice easier. I will also place a link to where I got the information from so you will be credited for the information. People may also click to visit your website after reading the article, as they may be interested in reading more articles from your website.

Could you please let me know whether the content is copyrighted and cannot be placed onto Minti. If it cannot be placed onto Minti, I will remove it. If not, could you please email me with your permission?

Thank you in advance.

Regards,

(insert name here)

Hopefully they will say yes you are able to re-publish their work. If not… well, then that’s just too bad!