# Up to 4 sentences permitted: per post, poster or thread?



## EStjarn

This is from WordReference forum rule #4 about respecting intellectual property:


> Quotes and translations of prose up to 4 sentences are permitted. [...] Song lyrics and verse may be quoted and translated, up to a maximum of 4 lines.



I imagine it to be clear as a bell to the majority of posters, but does the above apply per post, per poster in a given thread, or per thread?

(If the second or third, I must have violated the rule the other day without anyone spotting it .)


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## DonnyB

That particular section of rule 4 starts off with the line:
"No copyrighted material may be inserted _into posts_ except as indicated here:" [my italics]

So I would take it to mean 4 sentences or 4 lines per post.


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## Paulfromitaly

This is how an ex moderator replied to a similar question



cuchuflete said:


> Let's be clear:  we are subject to copyright law, whether we like it or not.  The courts  to which WR is subject have ruled that minor 'fair use' quotations are  allowed.  That is interpreted here as stated- four sentences of textual  prose, and four lines of lyrics.
> 
> If anyone should try, _in error_, to interpret that to  mean that they can quote more extensively by spreading the quotes across  multiple posts, they will be violating the spirit of the rules, and the  contributions will be deleted.
> 
> This is all really simple.  Efforts to complicate it or to find  loopholes are not a good use of anyone's time and energy.



This is how I see it too.
I really can't see how someone could possibly argue that, for example, posting a whole copyrighted book sentence by sentence, each sentence in a different thread, would not be an infringement of the copyright law


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## swift

Paulfromitaly said:


> This is how an ex moderator replied to a similar question
> This is how I see it too.
> I really can't see how someone could possibly argue that, for example, posting a whole copyrighted book sentence by sentence, each sentence in a different thread, would not be an infringement of the copyright law


 It's crystal clear. Unfortunately, there are lots of threads that contain 'minor' excerpts from the same work, some of them started by different people, some of them started by the same person. I think it should be easy for moderators to detect it when the same person quotes from the same work, especially when the user has been starting threads actively. Enforcing that rule becomes harder when the excerpts are posted by different users at different times.


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## Paulfromitaly

swift said:


> . I think it should be easy for moderators to detect it when the same person quotes from the same work, especially when the user has been starting threads actively.



Believe me, it's not always easy especially when some people, although they are well aware of the copyright rule, deliberately try to get round it.


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## Loob

Paul, are we really saying that once someone has quoted four sentences from a particular text, neither they nor anyone else can ever quote anything from that text again?
-------
EDIT: Ooh, I've just spotted that I posted in the thread Paul quoted a cuchu-post from.


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## Paulfromitaly

Loob said:


> Paul, are we really saying that once someone has quoted four sentences from a particular text, neither they nor anyone else can ever quote anything from that text again?



Not exactly.
As I see it, the same user cannot split a large chunk of copyrighted material (be it an excerpt from a book, song lyrics etc) into umpteenth threads and then post them all in a short lapse of time. 
If done deliberately, that's only a disingenuous attempt to distort the rules and comply with them or a cunning way to get round them 
I, on the other hand, don't have a problem with different people quoting parts of the same text.


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## EStjarn

Thank you, DonnyB, Paulfromitaly, swift and Loob.

I notice that Paul, being a moderator, refers to his own view here rather than the view of the moderator team. It would suggest a lack of consensus among moderators with regard to this specific aspect of rule #4. Nevertheless, since no other moderator has given _their_ view, we might understand that they are silently agreeing with him.


Paulfromitaly said:


> cuchuflete said:
> 
> 
> 
> [...] If anyone should try, _in error_, to interpret ["four sentences of textual prose and four lines of lyrics"] to mean that they can quote more extensively by spreading the quotes across multiple posts, they will be violating the spirit of the rules, and the contributions will be deleted. [...]
> 
> 
> 
> This is how I see it too.
Click to expand...


I think I have not provided sufficient context because the above scenario is very far from what I had in mind.

Say you have an original poster asking a grammar question, and contributors A and B reply. Contributor A answers first, quoting three sentences from a grammar book as part of her reply and adding a clarification of the quoted passage, which might otherwise have seemed unclear. Contributor B then replies, saying that he disagrees with the _explanation _of the passage. Contributor A counters by quoting from the grammar book another three sentences that supposedly proves that her explanation is correct.

This is a situation where in a particular thread one and the same poster quotes more than four sentences from a given source. To me (being the actual culprit here) it seems innocuous. Yet, from the replies so far I gather it would represent a breach of rule #4.

Here are some links to more information about "fair use", not for the sake of argument, because I am not arguing anything here, but for the sake of awareness.

U.S. Copyright Office
“One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords. This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the copyright law [...]. One of the more important limitations is the doctrine of “fair use.” The doctrine of fair use has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years and has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.”

_Summaries of Fair Use Cases_, Stanford University Libraries
This page lists and summarizes trial cases in which courts have ruled use of copyrighted material as either “fair use” or “not a fair use”. An example of the latter is a Harry Potter encyclopedia that included "extensive verbatim use of text from the Harry Potter books".

Wikipedia’s article on Authors Guild v. Google
“Authors Guild v. Google is a copyright case being litigated in the United States. It centers on the allegations by the Authors Guild, and previously by the Association of American Publishers, that Google infringed their copyrights in developing its Google Book Search database. In late 2013, U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin (sitting by designation) dismissed the lawsuit, and affirmed that the Google Books program meets all legal requirements for "fair use," in what Publishers Weekly called a "ringing endorsement" of Google. On April 11, 2014, the Authors Guild appealed the ruling to the U.S. Second Circuit."


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## Kelly B

The Fair Use law is pretty vague, I think, and I assume it varies significantly among countries. If I recall correctly, the four sentences/line rule was put in place as a good faith effort to protect both the forums as a business and the rights of authors whose work we seek to understand.

Four lines or sentences is a reasonable limit to achieve that objective - it's usually enough to understand the essence of a passage, but it's not usually a significant percentage of the original work. And it's easy to administer. Members try to respect the limits, and when moderators have to intervene, they can point to a rule that shows they're treating everyone fairly. 

If your passage runs long, or additional passages are posted, I expect it'll be handled with the Fair Use spirit in mind, as well as the objectives of the forum as a whole - what are you trying to achieve here? Is this portion necessary to properly understand your keyword or phrase, and will it be useful in the future to other readers?


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