Legal question about a blog topic

[Flubsto]

Hello every body!

I'm considering creating my first blog ever. Given that I don't feel comfortable writing but I do like reading and learning, I came up to the idea of writing summaries of the books I'll be reading. Well, to speak the truth I wouldn't really write the summary, I would copy literally the sentences or paragraphs I underlined while I read the book.

For example, this are the "summaries" of the first chapters of "Think and Grow Rich", done by me: Resúmenes de libros prácticos

My question is, would I have any legal problem if I copied literally whole sentences and parragraphs from books?

That's all folks, excuse my poor English

Cheers!

[cdn2wheeler]

Welcome to the boards, Flubsto.

Originally Posted by Flubsto

My question is, would I have any legal problem if I copied literally whole sentences and parragraphs from books?

Yes. If it's just a short phrase - say, less than 40 words - a citation should suffice. For instance,

Getting a remote personal assistant is a huge departure point and marks the moment that you learn how to give orders and be commander instead of the commanded.

Tim Ferriss, The 4 Hour Workweek, pg 119

But if you copy something verbatim and pass it off as your own, that's copyright infringement and is against the law.

[Brutha]

In general we are no lawyers and don't give legal advice for that reason.

As far as I remember Think and grow Rich is in the public domain, so you shouldn't have any problem with it.
For other things there is fair use. Whether something is "fair use" depends, on multiple factors, length and the country in which you live are two of them.

[Flubsto]

Thanks for the welcome and the help, cdn2wheeler and Brutha!

Originally Posted by cdn2wheeler

But if you copy something verbatim and pass it off as your own, that's copyright infringement and is against the law.

I'm not triying to pass it off as mine, my purpose is to use the organised structure a blog provides to organise and store the info I gather in books. I'm tired of finish reading a book and forgeting most of it after a couple of weeks.

So I suppose that if I put a disclaimer where I state clearly that the content is not mine, mention the original author and book from each quote, and try limiting the citations to be as brief as possible, it would be considered as "fair use". Or at least that's what I want to believe...

Cheers!

[John P]

Originally Posted by Flubsto

I'm not triying to pass it off as mine, my purpose is to use the organised structure a blog provides to organise and store the info I gather in books. I'm tired of finish reading a book and forgeting most of it after a couple of weeks.

So I suppose that if I put a disclaimer where I state clearly that the content is not mine, mention the original author and book from each quote, and try limiting the citations to be as brief as possible, it would be considered as "fair use". Or at least that's what I want to believe...

Cheers!

You still need to be careful here. Even if you properly cite the work to its original author, you can still break the law by displaying a copyrighted work.

Steve talked about this not too long ago if you want to look up some of his recent articles. The example he used was Harry Potter, I think. If I typed up the entire work of JK Rowling and posted her books on a website, even if I clearly said it was Rowling's work and not mine, I'd be violating copyright.

I think I might get some legal counsel before you proceed with your idea. It'd suck to go ahead and start, do a whole lot of work, and then have it taken down a year or two after you start.

[JimOfferman]

You have to be careful about using too many citations of the same source. One or two quotes are usually fine, but if your citations add up to cover a significant portion of the source, then you could still be infringing.

Have you considered contacting the original author or publisher? You can generally get permission to quote larger portions of a book, although not always for free. Your mileage may vary, but if your site is a valuable resource on it's own, the publisher might be interested in allowing you to use some extended quotes in exchange for, perhaps, a prominent add for their online shop.

(Always get permission in writing)

[Tayrak]

Quoting a few lines-or more realistically 'phrases', are going to be fine, really. But, always, always say who the author is.
Now if you want to make a few bucks while you're at it you can join amazon or barnes and nobles or some other book sellers as their affiliate and then you can rightfully quote a bit and give your reccomendation and put an ad on underneath and sell the book and make some money. If you go to amazon.com for example and scroll down to the very bottom you will find a little thingee that says Join Associates click it and there you go.
If you need help pm me.

[Flubsto]

Well guys, thanks for your answers!

As I can't find a definite answer to my question, I'll go ahead with the blog!

We are what we do, so if we do nothing, we are nothing.

This is the blog: Click a book!!! I'll be updating it with new chapters frequently, so stay tuned if you like it!

[Caveman Joe]

Flubsto, have a look at Twisted Librarian - Book reviews, opinions, and places to buy. It's a book review site that I designed for my GF, running on Geeklog. The site runs on Geeklog, I mean, not the girlfriend.
Anyway, she makes a healthy chunk of cash via Amazon referrals, so we've inserted a link into each review, and installed a GL plugin that will give us an Amazon search box on her site, formatted to nicely fit in aesthetics-wise.
It works for us, so it might be worth you examining it and seeing if there are any lessons to be learned that might be applied to your site.

(as an aside - Geeklog is WAY better than WordPress/Blogger in every imaginable way - and if your users have Blogger accounts, they can log in to your Geeklog site using their Blogger credentials, via Remote Authentication - how cool is that!)

[Flubsto]

Caveman Joe you certainly did a great job with that page!!

I didn't know the Amazon affiliate program and thanks to Tayrak and you I will very probably be implementing it into my blog soon.

I hadn't heard of geeklog either , so I'll definitely have to check it out and then decide if I move there.

Thank you all once again!