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Old 10-05-2007, 11:00 PM
Randy Randy is offline
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The legal theory LadyHoldem is talking about is called "fair use", and it's a provision of copyright law. You are not allowed to repost an entire work, but only a portion of it, and for it to be considered "fair use", you also have to be using the copyrighted material in a not for profit manner.

Rewriting stuff in your own words is tricky too, because you can still be plagiarizing even if you rewrite something into your own words. For example, if I copied an entire article from your site, pasted it onto my page, then changed the order of the words in most of the sentences, then I probably haven't done enough original work for it to *not* be plagiarism. (If rewrote every sentence that was in active voice in passive voice, all the sentences would be different, but I'd still be plagiarizing.)

If I reworded the entire book The Theory of Poker, but kept the same topics, and turned it into a 200 page website, I've violated Sklansky's copyright. I have to provide something new, different and unique for it to *not* be plagiarism. On the other hand, I could take each of the topics that Sklansky addresses in The Theory of Poker and provide commentary, examples from my own play, and disagreements I might have with his ideas, and produce an original work.

Summarizing multiple sources and providing your opinion on those multiple sources creates something new and unique, so that's a real approach. I don't think LadyHoldem meant that she's plagiarizing stuff, but it should be clear to people that *just* rewriting something into your own words is still copying.

All that being said, take anything I tell you about this with a grain of salt, because I'm no attorney, and most of what I post here is strictly for entertainment purposes.
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