There is a lot of plagiarism and downright stealing on the internet. It appears as the perfect storm mixing the ubiquitous and openness nature of the internet and often confusing license methodologies. Many people use the term “Fair Use” to cover flagrant abuse of excerpts or even direct copying.

Let’s take a look at what the U.S. Copyright Office has to say:

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”

Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work.

Certainly, if you are in the United States, there is a clear understanding of how publicly available content can be used. Some however, choose to license their content. Let’s look at three the more popular content licenses:

Creative Commons Licensing : Variable licensing options available.
The Creative Commons licensing provides many options that allow you to choose how, and for what purpose your content is legally distributable. The options are varied and I recommend you take a look at this page for more information.

GNU Documentation License : Viral licensing aimed at making everything free and editable.
The GNU Documentation License is derivative of the GNU License for software. It is viral in nature meaning that all offshoots of the original work must carry the same license. Full editing privileges are extended to anyone who uses content from the original source. In order to create a commercial companion to a GNU licensed work, you must make a very clear distinction with no carry over from the GNU source to the commercial piece. If the distinction is not made clearly the viral nature of the GNU license will apply to your work rendering it freely distributable.

OPL (Open Publication License) : Licensing for distribution but not editing of the material.
The OPL is also a viral license which requires attribution. It also allows the author to restrict editing of the document in whole or in part under Section VI Licensing Options. The OPL license is favored by content creators who want to make their content easy to distribute but need to maintain control of the messages and how they are used.