Copyright law and blogging

Alice Gould from The Guardian (Media) writes an interesting piece of work today on copyright law and blogging.

Spurred on by alleged journalists' use of students blogs during the recent US college shootings, Gould gives an overview of who owns first-hand account material posted to blogs, social networking sites, etc.

The general rule appears to be that 'whoever posts the material retains all rights of ownership'.

What is more, 'where permission is not obtained, the media can quote from these websites but legally must only reproduce 'less than a substantial part' of the original work.

So, that also means I can't quote any more from a very informative and succinct article on The blogosphere, the law and the printed word.

However, it would be interesting to know what a blogger can realistically hope to achieve if a large media corporation pinches some of their work and doesn't acknowledge them as the author.

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