Copying another persons story.

[mesmerize_99]

Am I allowed to copy a range of different news stories on something (new Apple MAC) and then blend them together to make my own online news story for my website? Is this plagarism? Should I cite my stories? Or does it not matter?

[sft42]

It is plagarism if you try to pass it off as your own work....if you cite sources then, especially with something as fluid as online news I can't see you running into major problems though technically you should seek permission to use Any material from any source on a website.

As long as it's a one off though I would assume you'll be ok but do acknowledge your souces just in case.

[mesmerize_99]

Thanks for your answer. I have a few follow up questions for you and everyone. What confuses me is when the major tabloid newspapers quote others work by using the following method; in a recent interview, Victoria Beckham mentioned "...." they usually don't cite anyone who did the interview. In this case it was a BBC journalist. Is this not plagarism? Why don't they use citations? Why does the BBC not do anything about it? Is this regarded as common place in journalism?

[WaldoMcFroog]

The following may be of some use to you: http://www.cla.co.uk/directive/BL-CLA-FAQ.doc A
s far as I understand it, a key consideration is whether you intent to profit commercially from your exploitation of someone else's copyright, but as sft42 says, you should seek permission to use any source. The Grauniad's copyright statement can be found here, and is probably pretty indicative: http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,12908,9
33909,00.html

[vittoria]

If you copy anything which is more than "insubstantial" then you are infringing copyright. If you re-write it in your own words you do not infringe. It would be plagiarism but nobody can sue you for that. It will just be unprofessional. I would imagine a professional organisation might discipline members for plagiarism (say) but it is not an offence.

[LeMarchand]

Apparenlty someone once sued the makers of Trivial Pursuit, as one of the "facts" they used as a question was one that he had made up to track anyone who copied his trivia book. He lost the case on the grounds that TP used many different sources, this being "research" rather than plaigiarism.

[mesmerize_99]

So another question arises. Is plagarism a crime? Could it be classed as fraud? and who polices these affairs?