Reposting news content

Hi,

I'm thinking of doing a site that would archive news stories on some niche subjects. I know I could just link to the stories, but over time most of those seem to disappear from the net and some sites have anti-deep linking schemes in place.

Is there any legal way I can mirror the content on my site? Is there some other solution? This won't be for a for profit venture.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Hope

You can only legally mirror the content if you have written permission.

Hmmm... not the answer I was hoping for.

Here's a notice on a similar type of website, what do you think?

Fair Use Notice

This web site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance the understanding of humanity's problems and hopefully to help find solutions for those problems.

We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. A click on a hyperlink is a request for information.

Consistent with this notice you are welcome to make 'fair use' of anything you find on this web site. However, if you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

You are required to make a valid effort to contact they copyright owner, you can't just post a disclaimer and make it the copyright owner's responsibility to find the violations and contact you. The 'fair use' clause is subject to a great deal of legal ferment and it is not a good idea to rely on something that may be challenged to the Supreme Court soon. You are allowed to make personal copies (though Hollywood is lobbying hard to take that freedom away) of content, but turning it around again for reposting is treading a fine line even if there appears to be no strings attached wrt the original poster's web site. I suggest that when asking to mirror content you offer to prominently place a link (of their choice) back to the original site. That may make them more likely to agree. Keep in mind that the courts are unlikely to recognize an email as an official legal document, so to be safe get it in writing (you can try to digitally sign a document, but few people are up to speed on that yet).

Of course, you could adopt the attitude (I recommend against this!) of “it ain’t illegal unless you get caught”.

This disclaimer does nothing to protect that site from infringement litigation. In fact, contrarily it's an admission of guilt. That the site is not making a profit does not mean there are no damages: see RIAA vs College Students

use google.com and search for "free website contents"

how is it irrevelant, there's certain web-sites that gives you the freedom to mirror their contents on your web-site or certain articles for free, it was a suggestion so that he would leave the idea of illegal mirroring of copyrighted materials

I won't list sites here but you can visit any and please discuss what you mean more clearly

Sorry, your actual comment was rather vague and didn't imply this intent at all. Google "free content" to me often means digging up the 2,000,000 icon libraries out there that all by some miracle have the same icons. But I digress ...

Mirroring content doesn't legally clear you if the content you're mirroring is not public domain.

I can give you a concise legal example of this:

I compose a jingle for Mr. Smith's website. In doing so I give him the exclusive one time right to publish it on mrsmithswebsite.com I take my $200 and we go on our merry way. Now, mr. smith just happens to have had an adult oriented website. Being the capitalist he is he decides to farm out mirror sites far and wide. These sites all copy his page, change the logo and pretend to be something different. If you happen to be the unfortunate sap that signed a deal with mr. smith then I still have a legal case against you. First, you would probably get a cease and desist letter. If you complied, chances are we'd ask for your cooperation in our litigation against mr. smith for breach of contract and you'd be off the hook (regardless if you actually cooperated further). But you're still legally obliged to account for the content you have, which would then include my $200 jingle you're not entitled to. In turn, you yourself could sue mr. smith if you were led to believe you do have entitlement. Now everyone is suing mr. smith, the poor schmuck, but it doesn't stop you from having to deal with me. Get it?