Important Rule for this Forum

[Ben Ruset]

Hey all -

So you may have heard, an unfortunate circumstance arose from a post in this section of the discussion forum recently. I need people to be extra vigilant about the copyright status of things they post here (and elsewhere on the site.)

If you run across a news article or something that you'd like to share, that's awesome! Please post it in this section, but only put a link to the article and maybe very short excerpt of the text or whatever your thoughts are. Please do not take any images that may be on the site you're linking to or copy too much text.

There are some exceptions to the rules:

1. If you have written permission from the copyright holder to post it in here.
2. If the material you're posting is in the public domain or not under copyright. Anything older than 1923 is in the public domain, even if it was formally copyrighted. Things published before 1964 MIGHT be if the copyright has not been renewed. If you really want to make your eyes bleed, here's a table that should explain all of the various dates of when things fall into public domain.
   
   You can find even more information here.
   
3. If you get the okay from me.

Note that if a newspaper goes defunct it may not fall out of copyright. Frequently newspapers are bought up by other media companies and the copyrights to all of their old publications transfers to the new owners.