h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>The e-mail was not at all informative. I wrote back for clarification and I have not yet had a reply. It just said that I had breached house rules.

I did not know that that site was in breach of copyright - how could I? Do we have to assume that all sites with modern lyrics breach copyright? How do we tell the OK ones from the ones in breach?<<


Hi ZSF!, I thought I'd come over here, as this is a bit off topic for a PR thread.

You might have to wait a bit longer than usual for a reply to your email, as the Community Team is down to one person at the moment. I will answer your general question about copyright though.

Any website quoting other people's work, lyrics, poems, stories, pictures etc, that has permission to quote what they are hosting will state that that have that permission.
If there is no such statement, we have to assume that they are in breach of copyright, so we can't link to it. You've probably seen <./>HouseRules-Copyright</.>, that refers to h2g2, but it can be used a guidelines for what you can and can't link to.

It can get complicated, as some things are out of copyright for one reason or another, and they are fine to link to.

I hope this helps.

Thanks, Linda.

It's a bit of a mine-field, isn't it. It explains why a link I sent to another researcher was also Moderated. you know, the one that goes:

'They f**k you up, your mum and dad.
They do not mean to, but they do. Etc.'

I had assumed it was it contained the naughty word, but maybe it was the copyright issue.

How do you know when something is out of copyright (except Shakespeare - he's a good bet)? I think it's 70 years. Are there circumstances where copyright would be retained past that time?

Copyright is 70 years after the author died. (This is UK law btw, it might be different elsewhere, but we go by UK.)

Peter Pan still has copyright on it though, as it was left to Great Ormand Street Hospital. It's something I've been learning as I go along since I have been working at h2g2, so I'm not *the* word in copyright. But I normally know the right person to ask.