You’re at a conference, the wifi is good, and you’re excited about live tweeting the next speaker. But have you ever wondered whether it’s “OK” to copy and publish someone else’s words and ideas? If you were at the movie theater, neither the studio nor the theater operator would permit you to videotape portions of the movie to post on your blog. On the other hand, the art of critical commentary goes back to at least Shakespeare’s time, so it’s definitely established both in common practice and in the law that reproducing information, even copyrighted information, is acceptable under certain circumstances.

Setting aside issues of whether the practice is actually useful, and whether it is distracting to the speaker and to others in attendance, live tweeting and live blogging of conferences, events and webcasts raises legal and ethical issues. Producers of webcasts and live events often charge admission for these, and they may include copyrighted material. Speakers may also have copyrighted their presentations, or may (in my case) quote substantial portions of a copyrighted book or other work. These words and ideas are essentially products that are sold commercially, and the owners have certain rights to them.

On the other hand, the law does permit reproduction of portions of copyrighted material. I have two biases that affect my opinions on this issue, but I think they balance each other. I have a degree in journalism so I appreciate the need for journalists to incorporate information from third parties in their works. As the author of a book, I also understand the need for copyright protections for commercial content.

The best guidance for whether live blogging and live tweeting is acceptable comes from the Fair Use provision of U.S. copyright law, which allows a certain percentage of a copyrighted work to be reproduced for purposes such as a review of a book or theatrical play. Factors that affect whether reproduction of a copyrighted work is fair use are:

1. “The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission.”

In other words, fair use is in the eyes of the beholder. The government will not rule on what is or isn’t fair use, leaving it the judgment of the individual, and in some cases, the courts to make the ultimate determination.

Despite the federal government’s unwillingness to establish numerical guidelines for fair use, many organizations have set their own limits. The University of California for example, in its Policy on the Reproduction of Copyrighted Materials for Teaching and Research, permits teachers to reproduce for classroom use “either a complete article, story or essay of less than 2,500 words or an excerpt of not more than 2,500 words from any prose work.” The policy was written in 1986, long before blogging and tweeting. Today, 2500 words is quite substantial and I think excessive. The UC policy also reminds teachers that if they exceed fair use limits they “can subject the one making unauthorized copies and the University to severe penalties.” The UC policy pertains to photocopying, not live events, but it does give some ideas of how to apply fair use. (I did not find a UC policy covering other fair use guidelines.)

Last year, the Associated Press announced it would “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.”

A practical approach is to simply ask yourself, does the speaker want his or her work reproduced and distributed free of charge? Some may, some may not. The right, and the ability, to freely share information is such a cornerstone of Web 2.0, that I think most conference organizers and speakers in the Web 2.0/social media sphere are happy to have their talks live tweeted and live blogged. Either practice is more like reporting than reproduction, and would involve the “copying” of relatively small percentages of the content.

Most speakers make their slides and speaker’s notes available to attendees and these are freely distributed. I do the same, and I don’t care if my talks are reproduced in full, as long as there is attribution. And if someone can benefit from the information, I am happy for them to have it. Who knows — it could lead someone to buy my book or choose to engage my company.

My publisher generally allows me to grant permission to people who request the right to reproduce content from my book as long as the material constitutes less than 10% of the book. It is unlikely that someone live tweeting one of my talks could approach that 140 characters at a time, or even that a blogger could do so.

In one recent case, a blogger and researcher was criticized for live blogging a scientific meeting because the organizers felt he should have “abide(d) by the rules governing professional journalists attending the conference.” These rules include the requirement that journalists inform conference organizers in advance of their intentions.

Another interesting issue journalists are contending with is how Fair Use applies to information published on Twitter. Last month, Julie Posetti wrote a piece on the PBS MediaShift blog, Rules of Engagement for Journalists on Twitter. She believes that anything that appears on Twitter is “fair game”:

“Although social media etiquette may not recognize a journalist’s right to report any material published openly, the reality is that open Twitter accounts are a matter of permanent public record and fair game for journalists. While attribution is vital and it might be polite (but not necessary) to seek the approval of a Twitterer to quote them, I don’t see anything unethical about using tweets in mainstream news coverage.”

She goes on to say, however that she feels private Twitter accounts, those requiring owner approval of subscription requests, are off-the-record and not fair game. I disagree with her take that simply because something is published it is therefore a matter of public record and fair game. This would probably apply to quoting someone in a story, but not to reproducing material that might be copyrighted. Just because a tweet is only 140 characters does not remove it from the domain of copyrighted material. Multiple tweets could be used to convey an article, or a Twitter-based webcast. A journalist could quote a portion under Fair Use, but could not reproduce something in its entirety.

This also points out one of the weak links in the integrity of information in the Web 2.0 world. Bloggers and tweeters are NOT professional journalists. They don’t have training in ethical practices in areas like attribution and when and how to quote a source.

I generally hold that new media does not require new ethics, and I think this is largely the case in live tweeting/live blogging a presentation or webcast. Given that these practices don’t generally involve reproduction of any significant portion of the entire “work,” both common practice and the law seem to permit this.

Do you live tweet conferences and web casts? Do you have any personal guidelines you follow, or are you aware of any guidelines established by your company or organization?

Tags: Fair Use, copyright, Twitter, live tweeting, live blogging, guidelines