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So, I'm writing an article for Medium and I need to back up my words with some proofs. I found the researches all publicly available, via Google Search, some just PDF's from, some are leading to jstor.org.

And my work of course is not a standalone resource, but just a review of closely related topics and results we are having up to this day. Part of the topics are common engineering knowledge, some is more specific.

Is it legal to do such referencing (in any form, but with acknowledgment to origin of some data or facts I'm using) in my Medium article, if I can enable partner program and get money for that?

Jen
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Artsiom Miksiuk
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2 Answers2

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It is legsl to include references showing readers where facts you include in your article were derived, or where they can be supported. Indeed academic ethics generally require doing so, although there is (in most cases) no legal requirement to do so. Listing the title, author, and publication information of a source is not an infringement of copyright. That J. Jones published an article on "How to Find the Purple Moth" [imaginary example] in volume 28 of the Journal of Moth Science is a fact.Facts are never protected by copyright. Indeed in US law 17 USC 102(b) provides that:

b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

The laws of other countries are similar on this point. Indeed I do not know of any country in which facts are protected by copyright.

So, including such references is fully legal, and no permission from the sources being cited is required. This is true whatever form the reference takes. In particular, if an online address for the content is included, this is still true.

I do not know whether Medium, or any other specific publishing platform, will pat fees to authors based on clik-thru from such citations. That depends on their particular policies, which might be found in their Terms of Service or other policy document.

David Siegel
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David Siegel’s answer that it is legal is substantially correct, but there are some edge case scenarios. Whether you are paid for your work is irrelevant for almost all of them.

Substantial copying and copyright violation

Your work can use previous works as sources of information/knowledge, including with short citations. However, if you use large amount of the original work with no modifications or only minor ones, it potentially becomes a copyright violation of the original work.

If the original work was published with an sufficiently permissive license, you may still do it as long as you comply with the license. For instance, Wikipedia uses the CC-BY-SA license, which means you can publish books made entirely of copy-pasted Wikipedia articles (some people have done that), legally (as long as you put the appropriate license information).

That is the only case where the fact that you are paid may matter, for two possible reasons:

  • some licenses allow reuse only for non-commercial purposes (e.g. CC-BY-NC), which makes reusing material in a commercial context a copyright violation.
  • in the US, reusing copyrighted content is allowed if one meets the condition of fair use; one part of the test is "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes" (emphasis added). Other jurisdictions may employ similar tests.

Trade secrets and other insider information

An employer or former employer may restrict your ability to disclose information that you obtain in the course of your job. Similarly, you (or your company on your behalf) may have signed non-disclosure agreements with other parties. The details of what restrictions are allowed varies considerably across jurisdictions, though the general principle is the same.

Citing an internal report of a company you worked for without their permission is asking for trouble - it will be pretty strong evidence that you got internal information from that report, even if the same information would be available from public sources.

Classified information

Virtually all countries deem certain information to be state secrets, and disclosing said information bring harsh penalties to people who are supposed to keep it secret (military staff, defense contractors etc.).

Some countries prohibit the publication of classified information by anyone under their jurisdiction. Such restrictions are regularly challenged on freedom-of-speech grounds with more or less success.

KFK
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