There are reasons for allowing copying for review etc, and if it was evidence of some wrong-doing then I believe that would strengthen a case for copying it – but for a blog post that would only apply if the original was taken down.

Sploggers typically don’t copy the entire blog. I have not found evidence of a single splogger copying more than 10% of my site (although there were a few who would have eventually reached 10% if I hadn’t stopped them first). Many sploggers have just copied one or two posts.

http://etbe.coker.com.au/translation/

Translation without permission is not a clear issue (I recommend that you not translate posts from major magazine sites). But fortunately for you I thought of that some months ago and put the above page on my site. Since then I decided not to mirror the translations (although I reserve the right to do so). If you personally want to put a translation of my Email EULA post on a site with Google advertising then I grant you permission to do so (I’m still considering what I will do in regard to other people wanting to do the same).

You don’t quite admit to that unfairness by changing the license by hand a posteriori, but maybe I could try and convince you. You did it because you really want this type of linking, but even if you didn’t (imagine I copy this comment of yours and put it up as purported evidence of some wrongdoing of yours) I should still be allowed to. Copyright can be a form of censorship, and micromanaging of what can be quoted and what can’t by copyright owners is censorship by means of hassle.

Not that I like sploggers, far from that. On the “10% rule” I would argue that spidering your whole site and putting ads on it as many sploggers do is a rotten thing to do (and probably illegal under Australian law), but this particular snippet is much, much less than 10% of your whole blog, which is what sploggers would be putting up.

Also, would you consider me a copyright infringer if I translated your list of conditions into Spanish (a derivative work!”) and put them up somewhere on my HTTP server so I could link them from my SMTP server? (in fact I am seriously thinking of doing it, I too hate made-up legal semi-threats in .sigs). I am not asking whether I would have your permission, but whether you would consider that actionable if I did it without your permission.

The most important part of my post was quoted entirely, I don’t believe that this is fair use (one of the criteria is no more than one section – four numbered sections doesn’t count). Under Australian fair-dealing laws it seems that the limit of one “chapter” or 10% of the work is not met.

As I said it’s a use that I desire and I changed the license to permit such things. But the license that I had at the time you quoted it did not permit such things.

If you have any suggestions as to how to improve things and avoid such confusion in future then please let me know.

Thanks for forwarding the link, I really appreciate it! But I couldn’t in good conscience let this matter slip after my recent actions in sending out DMCA take-down notices to sploggers.

I am a faithful reader, and I was the one who sent the link to your post to BoingBoing. It’s true that I quoted most of the post (at least the “meat” of it), but it was not a verbatim copy: I selected a nugget, wrote some copy around it, including the part where I attributed your name, wrote a different headline (which Cory modified himself afterwards).

Thus, it’s quite likely that this usage falls within fair use in the USA, and I think it’s under fair dealing in Australia too, (but I am not a lawyer and etc; I just try to know what the law is so I follow it).

I am a Melbournian now: maybe I will say hello at a LUV meeting sometime soon…