Editor’s Note: Discuss the copyright issues facing bloggers and syndication alike at SyndicationPro.

“Battles are being fought and new rules considered,” said David Smallman of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, PC. “We are looking at Creative Commons, fair use, the universal declaration of human rights, libel, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and more.

“But for now the fundamental rules apply.” Smallman noted his firm plans to publish a handbook online about the legal issues of syndication.

Brian Murphy from the same firm said it is important to recognize that the law is always trying to catch up to technology.

“Generally speaking, a copyrighted work may not be used or copied – in whole or in part – without permission…subject to a few exceptions. You almost always have to ask for permission,” he said.

The federal government is an exception to that, so bloggers can feel free to appropriate from it.

Fair use came up in the conversation, and Murphy listed some of the factors surrounding that:

1. purpose and character of use
2. nature of copyrighted work
3. amount and substantiality of portion used relative to entire copyrighted work
4. effect of use upon potential market and value of copyrighted work.

Written agreements will be important. Murphy said he would have no idea how to respond to a question from a client who wants to use a work created collaboratively by 17 people with no agreement in place.

Rich Ord asked the panel about fair use and full-text feeds: “If a blogger or publisher offers a full text RSS feed are they in effect giving consent for others to republish their content?” and provided us with the ensuing discussion:

Chad Milton, SVP National Practice Leader, Media & Intellectual Property, Marsh, touched on the issue of indemnity for media and intellectual property. The size of the company matters to the insurers.

Small firms may find the pace insurers take in deciding to sell insurance against such claims could be a leisurely one; the insurance companies don’t know just what they are getting into yet.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Is it legal, and would the notes even be credible from such a source?

The notes are being promoted as “Essential Tips, Tactics and Resources from Search Engine Strategies New York 2005″ and Ian McCanerin of SMA NA raises the issue of legality at Jupiters own SearchEngineWatch Forums saying:

But what happens when you take it to the next step and start charging for that information? What if you attend an SES, take a bunch of notes, then charge people for it?

You could also argue that copying down someone elses work and repackaging it for sale is a copyright violation.

A good point made i think, perhaps Jupiter will have something to say on this at some point.

Legalities aside, are they worth $15?

The notes are being flogged at $15 a crack, what interests me besides the possible legalities involved is the fact that for all appearances, B.L. Ochman is a Search Newbie and it could be argued that not only are the notes potentially in breach of copyright, but are not what they are marketed to be.

What qualifies Ochman to sell (at admittedly a pittance) notes on the following?

1. 24 Need to Know Search Engine Optimization Tactics
2. 21 Insider’s Tips for increasing your search ranking
3. 23 essential resources for Search Optimization Strategy

I’ll gladly retract the last paragraphs if someone can point to something that validates her as a Search expert, but for now, i’d say that $15 was about $14 too much to ask…

For an excellent summary and commentary on many of the sessions at SES NYC see Barry Schwartz’s coverage for FREE here.

Nick Wilson is the publisher and founder of Threadwatch.org.

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