Copyright

Discussion in 'Research Material' started by zahonado, Jun 8, 2014.

  1. zahonado

    zahonado Well-Known Member

    Apologies if this has been asked before..
    Does anyone know what the rules are about quoting material from books written in the 50s and 60s. Ie is it OK as long as the source is quoted? Can I acknowledge generally, eg in an introduction or do I have to put footnotes or brackets in each time? What about generally quoted stories put into my own words? And bits from the war diaries, gazette or IWM? Also although I have some permissions from some of you, how about quotes from this or other websites?
    Any advice gratefully received! Thank you
     
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  2. ritsonvaljos

    ritsonvaljos Senior Member

    The quoting of any historic material quoted when writing up your personal research or for forums such as this one, should be fine so long as the source of the material is acknowledged. For example, on this type of forum, when quoting an extract from a newspaper, book, or Archives document I would tend to give an acknowledgement and - where appropriate - the reference number. This also makes it easier for others reading it to trace the original source document.

    For academic purposes, such as a dissertation about a WW2 related subject, then the format of quoting the source documents would be made clear beforehand. Typically, this would mean giving a short reference at the point a source document is quoted, with a more complete bibliography / list of sources used at the end.

    In the past I have written about WW2 for my university studies and so had to use this conventional academic format. Obviously when posting something to 'WW2 Talk' you are not writing a university dissertation so you would not give a full bibliography but, when quoting someone else, you would still acknowledge where it comes from. For more recent sources used, such as photographs, then permission should be sought from whoever the copyright owner is (which is what you say you have done). There are some more recent conventions, such as photographs posted to 'Facebook' for example, which can be 'shared' to others and it is clear where they have originated.

    On the other hand, it would be poor form just doing a 'copy and paste', give no acknowledgement and claim a piece of writing or photograph as your own 'work' (intellectual property). We have had instances on this forum where someone has done this but sooner or later another forum member usually picks up on it.

    If you want to quote me on this subject somewhere else you could begin by writing "According to ..... "

    Best wishes
     
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  3. BrianM59

    BrianM59 Senior Member

    Google 'APA referencing' and you'll get a host of useful material which will tell you everything from basics to complex.
     
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  4. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Well said Joe !

    Wikipedia has a fair bit more to say on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright but if forum members follow your advice they wont go far wrong.

    On the odd occasion where a second party has published something I have written without due acknowledgement of it's source I have jumped on them like a ton of bricks and I strongly advise others to do likewise.

    Ron
     
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  5. zahonado

    zahonado Well-Known Member

    Thanks for that everyone. Not an academic tome but trying to put Dads diary into the context of before and after as he failed to record the most important bits in 1944 and 45. I would prefer not to interrupt the flow, such as it is, by referencing each sentence, though I do refer throughout to the books and writers concerned. I am merely trying to tell his story with a bit of history thrown in! Still seems a lot of work.....
     
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  6. ritsonvaljos

    ritsonvaljos Senior Member

    Quite right too, Ron.
     
  7. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Good luck with the project zahonado, I'm sure it will prove worthwhile. :)
     

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