Copyright, Permission

I have a collection of pdf's related to forex.

99% of them I found free on other webites.

My question is other then the few that I know that I paid for(that I will have affilate links for) How can I find out if I am legally allowed to redistribute them on my site to other people? Some are stratagies others are mindset related. all are related to trading in some way.

I know in some of the ebooks/pdf's it says right in them that they are free and that anyone is free to distribute also.

the ones I am concerened with are the ones that dont have that little disclaimer.

I know just the fact that someone else had them available for me to download for free doesnt mean it was legal to do so.(or that they didnt have the original authors permission or whathave you) I would like to put as much of the info I have learned from on my site as possible but dont want to get into any trouble doing it.

any suggestions?

I would suggest not distributing the ones that don't explicitly give you the permission to distribute. This type of written material is automatically copyrighted, and even without a copyright notice, it's illegal to redistribute without permission.

That said, you can always rewrite the material in your own words, and distribute it as your own. The ideas are free to copy...the words are not...

hmmm.. I read your post awhile ago and Ive been chewing on it since lol.

I have a few reservations about this.

1. if I do go thru everything and write my own material then I most likely wouldnt want to give it away for free. (not saying I would want money persay I could offer it as a lead capture incentive or something)

2. This is material that I have learned from. I would imagine that the original author had a better understanding of what they were trying to explain to me then I have to try to reexplain(in my own words not just parrot it)to another party. Forex and trading is a very complicated subject and I dont know if I understand it to the extent that would be required for me to rewrite it.

3. some of the items I wanted to offer are specific first hand stories and accounts from actual traders. I know I could not ever pass on to someone else what I got out of reading those. they would have to read the stories first hand themselves to get any benifit from it. (example reminisences of a stock operator the jesse livermore story)


I remember reading somewhere and I have no idea where, that after a certian amount of time authors copyrights expire and their works goes into something called the public domain or something like that, when it becomes public domain then other people can redistribute it with no restrictions unless someone else is granted a new copyright.

I dont know if its after a certian amount of time or if its based on when or if they die.

If someone knows what I am talking about and can point me in the direction of a place to check on that I would greatly appreciate it. I am pretty sure that I recall the remininces of a stock operator being in that catergory of public domain..(or whatever its called lol)

thanks jscott I am going to keep thinking about what you said while I go thru the material i have and find out what has disclaimers that I can use as is, which ones id like to check to see if I can re-distribute, as well as the ones I am going to endorse for sale to others.

I love this place!

There are some exceptions to the rule, but copyright generally lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. The exceptions involve both anonymous authorship and stuff copyrighted prior to 1978). But, both of those exceptions still allow very long-term copyright (70+ years).

My best suggestion would be to ask the authors of the materials if they will allow you to redistribute on your site. If you keep their copyright notice and give them credit for the work, they may be willing to let you do that.

Barring that, I wouldn't recommend distributing anything without the permission of the author...

thanks.

I am even concerened with distrbuting the free to redistribute ones because I dont know if those disclaimers are original to the document/author. they could have been added after the fact by someone else.

can I get in trouble for putting links to a page with a download hosted by another site? that way I would not actually have the material acesses and downloaded from my site, they would be downloaded from the places I got them from. if I can link to the sites i got the d/l from that would work for me and I could still be providing the info. kinda.