You did the right thing KKCTY and, to be fair to Mr. Huggins, he
does have a disclaimer at the bottom of this webpage asking people to let him know if they discover any copyright infringements - in other words you've let him know that he needs to acknowledge his source.
Copyright citation for written material and images, particularly photographs on the web is really, really, really hard to nail and in fact most artists and writers will not bother with taking action,
unless their material is fee-earning or being sold (on tee-shirts for instance) as the web author's or by the site owner
This leaves
huge wriggle room for the unscrupulous to use material that isn't their's so long as they are not a) selling it without permission (so effectively theft as they're intentionally diverting potential income) or b) claiming it's their pwn work (more difficult but this can be construed as defamation - so if I said I painted 'The Scream' not Edvard Munch his estate could technically sue as I've lied and might then illegally claim revenue for its use...
)
In this case Colin may decide not take any action because Mr. Huggins has
not asserted that he wrote all of that article and has asked for anyone who knows who wrote certain elements to inform him so he can request permission.
This bit ~
"I didn't write all the stuff on this page. I got it, in part, from email and/or newsgroup postings. Efforts to identify a copyright holder were unsuccessful and it may be anonymous or in the public domain. If you have any information to the contrary, and particularly if you are the original author or copyright holder, please notify me.".
is enough to exonerate him of using others' words by accident effectively as he is not a) selling anything dependant on that text and b) acknowledges, however obliquely, that not all the material was written by him.
In other words there's no point in suing him for plagiarism (as he's not publishing it for commercial purposes, there would be little point in doing so) as there's no reason to since he has followed the conditions of what's known as 'fair use'.
One of the fan websites for Harry Potter fell foul of Ms Rowling's publishers last year when they wanted to publish a hard copy in paperback of their HP 'encyclopedia' which they'd compiled on her books - the publishers claimed that they had plagiarised on the basis of using JK's intellectual property as their source material.
The website countered by saying that no objecion had been raised to their publishing the same information on the web (on a free-membership forum board much like this one) and their book was merely based on Rowling's writings, which were now in the public domain. They also asserted that their contributors had their own copyright rights as she had not actually written any of the articles contained under the various entries...
I don't know what the outcome was, but that instance illustrates the problem that faces writers on or off the web, as it's getting very blurred as to what is stealing and what is not.
Then there's the ultra common practice of 'hotlinking' - I've had it done to me 'technically'!
This picture -
which itself contains a disclaimer, as I used a photo I'd found in a google search to depict the forest (I'd manipulated it in Photoshop too, so I wasn't using it in its original format and if there
had been a copyright issue had I been using it to make money then I was potentially in big trouble) but I added the sub-title acknowledging my source so I covered my back
I found out a few months ago that this pic was posted on a site in Czechia without my permission - although I posted it on a website that contained my personal info, so it wouldn't have been hard to attribute 'ownership' to me. If the guy was selling it as a postcard or whatever then I'd have been pretty upset, but as it is I'm actually quite flattered that someone liked it enough to put up on his board...
If he'd also used the URL from my own website (in other words hotlinking) I might not have been quite so chuffed as that could potentially cost me money even if he's not making any
Moral of the story - always own up to material you want to use that
isn't yours to use even if you can't find out who it belongs to. If you
do know who it belongs to - ask them if they mind you using it, even if you're going to benefit financially from it in some way, as they may be prepared to license it...
)
)
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