One of the things that I see all too often in blogs I review is the excessive replication of text from other sources. I generally will not stay long on a blog that is little more than material copied from other places.
Replication is just another word for copying. Copying of any portion of a work of original expression is an exclusive right of the copyright owner. The only exceptions for this are when permission has been given by the copyright owner and when the copying is being done under the principles of fair use, which allows for limited copying under some circumstances. Other copying is an infringement of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner.
Factual information in a work can be conveyed without replication and without infringement of the copyright. Just because a work is copyrighted doesn’t mean everything in it is. A work’s copyright protection can only be extended to those parts of a work that are original to the author.
When the author clothes facts or ideas with an original description or other original collection of words, then this written expression may be protected. However, the underlying facts or ideas may be copied by others, but not the precise words used to present them. If a compiler adds no written expression and only lets the facts speak for themselves, the protection of copyright may only be extended to the originality of the selection and/or arrangement, if there is any originality.
