Anyone got any ideas/experience seeking copyright permission

[Ria Stone]

Hola SWF members:

I have an old collection of movie reviews I had planned on publishing years ago but felt I should seek permission to use the movie promotion images.

I did research film companies to get emails to ask for permission but no response. I do understand that most copyright permissions require payment, often so expensive, it prohibits self-publishing.

I did not have any success, so the idea has been gathering dust.

Two of my writing projects will require seeking permission for text excerpts or the use of songs. I think I can manage to get permission for the text excerpts but haven't even tried with the songs because it will probably be too expensive.

I wondered if anyone else has tried to get copyright permissions for images, text excerpts or use of songs.

[djmills]

Learn copyright laws. I am not a copyright lawyer so this is only my opinion. ;-)
For text, is it fair use? I was taught at Uni that fair use had to be much less than 10% of a work, but the use had to acknowledge the owner of the copyright material, either in the text or with footnotes, but you may interpret differently.

I know I would be upset if someone reprinted the first 10% of a story of mine, then a second person printed the second 10%, etc until the book was fully copied and free or other people are earning income from my book but I was not.

For anything else, you need permission, to use and sell in any way, shape or form.
I suggest you Google for copyright business houses who manage copyrights for lots of different artists, authors, etc. and see what their standard pricing is for fair use. :-)

Good luck with your project.

[Julie Harris]

JUst a maybe, Ria. On the movie posters does it have copyright information? If so, source each image using that ie (Source: Paramount 1956).
If this is non fiction I believe there is a fair use clause. it's usually no more than 10% of the total work. Be careful of using lyrics though unless specific permission is granted. You can always put a disclaimer that all efforts to source original copyright permissions were made...
Hope this was somewhat helpful. Email me for more information. I had one full semester of being copyright person for the university's publishing department. Break out in cold sweat just remembering.

[serbanvcenache]

Ria, video game reviewers on youtube make money by uploading videos, including gameplay, sounds, music; and it's under fair use. Sure, the reporting-bots of the copyright holders make bogus claims all the times, but the youtuber in question has the option of disputing the claim. Like the others suggested, make sure to look up the legislation & quote the source material. It's probably safer (less headache) to not use images, and simply refer to the titles.
I'll let Angry Joe explain one of his plights in this video.

[Ted]

Fair Use Frequently Asked Questions, from Teaching Copyright

What is fair use?

The Copyright Act gives copyright holders the exclusive right to reproduce works for a limited time period. Fair use is a limitation on this right. Fair use allows people other than the copyright owner to copy part or, in some circumstances, all of a copyrighted work, even where the copyright holder has not given permission or objects.

How does fair use fit with copyright law?

Copyright law embodies a bargain. It gives copyright holders a set of exclusive rights for a limited time period as an incentive to create works that ultimately enrich society as a whole. In exchange for this limited monopoly, creators enrich society by, hopefully, contributing to the growth of science, education and the arts.

However, copyright law does not give copyright holders complete control of their works. Copyrighted works move into "the public domain" and are available for unlimited use by the public when the copyright term expires (see Public Domain FAQ). But even before works enter the public domain, the public is free to make "fair uses" of copyrighted works.

By carving out a space for creative uses of music, literature, movies, and so on, even while the works are protected by copyright, fair use helps to reduce a tension between copyright law and the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression. The Supreme Court has described fair use as "the guarantee of breathing space for new expression within the confines of Copyright law."1

How does the court know if a use is fair?

Whether a use is fair will depend on the specific facts of the use. Note that attribution has little to do with fair use; unlike plagiarism, copyright infringement (or non-infringement) doesn't depend on whether you give credit to the source from which you copied. Fair use is decided by courts on a case-by-case basis after balancing the four factors listed in section 107 of the Copyright Act. Those factors are:

The purpose and character of the use of copyrighted work

Transformative quality - Is the new work the same as the copyrighted work, or have you transformed the original work, using it in a new and different way?
Commercial or noncommercial - Will you make money from the new work, or is it intended for nonprofit, educational, or personal purposes? Commercial uses can still be fair uses, but courts are more likely to find fair use where the use is for noncommercial purposes.

The nature of the copyrighted work
A particular use is more likely to be considered fair when the copied work is factual rather than creative.
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
How much of the copyrighted work did you use in the new work? Copying nearly all of the original work, or copying its "heart," may weigh against fair use. But "how much is too much" depends on the purpose of the second use. Parodies, for example, may need to make extensive use of an original work to get the point across.2

The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work
This factor applies even if the original is given away for free. If you use the copied work in a way that substitutes for the original in the market, that will weigh against fair use. Uses of copyrighted material that serve a different audience or purpose are more likely to be considered fair.

These factors are guidelines, and they are not exclusive. As a general matter, courts are often interested in whether or not the individual making use of a work has acted in good faith.

What has been recognized as fair use?

Many types of uses have been found to be fair. Here's a small sample:

Criticism & Commentary
A book publisher used several stills from the famous 1963 Zapruder footage of President Kennedy's assassination for the historical book Six Seconds in Dallas. Time Inc., the owner of the footage, sued the book publisher for copyright infringement. In Time Inc. v. Bernard Geis Associates, the court ruled that the publisher's use of the stills was "fair and reasonable," in part because the use was based on a factual and historical news event.3

Parody
An episode of the TV cartoon "Family Guy" made fun of comedian Carol Burnett's image and signature characters from her 1960's comedy variety show. In Carol Burnett v. Twentieth Century Fox, the court ruled that the show's use was fair, in part because the "Family Guy" episode was designed to parody Burnett as a public figure, using a relatively small percentage of copyrighted material, and would not substitute for the original in any market.4

News reporting
The Washington Post newspaper used three brief quotations from Church of Scientology texts that were posted on the Internet. In Religious Technology Center v. Pagliarina, the court found the use to be fair, in part because the newspaper excerpted only a small portion of the work and the purpose was for news commentary.5

Art
American artist Jeff Koons used a portion of a designer photo advertisement (a model's legs in Gucci sandals) amongst a collection of iconic images in his painting, "Niagara." In Blanch v. Koons, the court held that the painting's use of the copyrighted images was a transformative fair use, in part because it commented on fashion and consumer culture.6

Scholarship and Research
A biographer of author Richard Wright quoted from six of Wright's unpublished letters and ten unpublished journal entries. In Wright v. Warner Books, Inc., the court found that the biographer's use was fair, in part because the biographer's purpose was to educate and inform the public, and his use constituted less than 1% of Wright's unpublished letters. 7
A researcher at a nonprofit foundation used quotations from an unpublished, historical literary work in her academic presentation. In Sundeman v. The Seajay Society, the court ruled that the researcher's use was fair and noted that the work was transformative and was used solely for the purpose of scholarly analysis. 8

Time-shifting
A major electronics manufacturer developed a video tape recording device that allowed the consumer to "time-shift"—record a complete TV program in real-time and hold the show for a later viewing. Several major film studios filed a copyright infringement suit against the electronics manufacturer claiming the device could be used for copyright infringement. In 1984's Sony v. Universal Studios (aka the Betamax case), the Supreme Court held that time-shifting with a VCR qualified as fair use. The courts noted that the private, non-commercial home taping of free television programs for later viewing was not infringing and did not hurt the market value of the copyrighted material.9

Search Engines
A Google search engine turned the photos on a subscription-only website into thumbnail images for its search results. In Perfect 10 v. Amazon.com et al, the court ruled that Google's use of thumbnail photos was "highly transformative," since the search engine changed the image's original purpose of entertainment and aesthetics into providing Google's users with links to images.10

More on the web site: www.teachingcopyright.org/handout/fair-use-faq

Copyright - fair use - from Stanford University:

What Is Fair Use?

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal infringement.

So what is a “transformative” use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general rules and varied court decisions, because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation.

Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: (1) commentary and criticism, or (2) parody.

Commentary and Criticism

If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work — for instance, writing a book review — fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism include:

quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review
summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in a news report
copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or student in a lesson, or
copying a portion of a Sports Illustrated magazine article for use in a related court case.

The underlying rationale of this rule is that the public reaps benefits from your review, which is enhanced by including some of the copyrighted material. Additional examples of commentary or criticism are provided in the examples of fair use cases.

Parody

A parody is a work that ridicules another, usually well-known work, by imitating it in a comic way. Judges understand that, by its nature, parody demands some taking from the original work being parodied. Unlike other forms of fair use, a fairly extensive use of the original work is permitted in a parody in order to “conjure up” the original.

fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/

[Ria Stone]

Jun 1, 2016 13:59:18 GMT -8 Julie Harris said:

JUst a maybe, Ria. On the movie posters does it have copyright information? If so, source each image using that ie (Source: Paramount 1956).
If this is non fiction I believe there is a fair use clause. it's usually no more than 10% of the total work. Be careful of using lyrics though unless specific permission is granted. You can always put a disclaimer that all efforts to source original copyright permissions were made...
Hope this was somewhat helpful. Email me for more information. I had one full semester of being copyright person for the university's publishing department. Break out in cold sweat just remembering.

You are a gem, Julie:

I did a lot of copyright research regarding the movie review publication but most routes were too expensive which is why it never got published.

The text excerpts I am good with, I think I understand "fair use."

Also, I did do some research regarding use of songs, what I was hoping for, if I found the right contact information, was to plead poverty and "student work" status since the work considered would have been my first venture into a different medium :-) but, again, the expense was prohibitive. My only other avenue is to seek new artists who may feel the exposure would be helpful.

Sorry to hear your experiences as the go to person for copyright info was so harrowing

Keep writing.

[Ria Stone]

Jun 1, 2016 16:27:04 GMT -8 serbanvcenache said:

Ria, video game reviewers on youtube make money by uploading videos, including gameplay, sounds, music; and it's under fair use. Sure, the reporting-bots of the copyright holders make bogus claims all the times, but the youtuber in question has the option of disputing the claim. Like the others suggested, make sure to look up the legislation & quote the source material. It's probably safer (less headache) to not use images, and simply refer to the titles.
I'll let Angry Joe explain one of his plights in this video.

Thanks for the info.

Oh, I have my own story regarding YouTube and copyright :-)

[Ria Stone]

Jun 1, 2016 22:40:11 GMT -8 Ted said:

Fair Use Frequently Asked Questions, from Teaching Copyright

What is fair use?

The Copyright Act gives copyright holders the exclusive right to reproduce works for a limited time period. Fair use is a limitation on this right. Fair use allows people other than the copyright owner to copy part or, in some circumstances, all of a copyrighted work, even where the copyright holder has not given permission or objects.

How does fair use fit with copyright law?

Copyright law embodies a bargain. It gives copyright holders a set of exclusive rights for a limited time period as an incentive to create works that ultimately enrich society as a whole. In exchange for this limited monopoly, creators enrich society by, hopefully, contributing to the growth of science, education and the arts.

However, copyright law does not give copyright holders complete control of their works. Copyrighted works move into "the public domain" and are available for unlimited use by the public when the copyright term expires (see Public Domain FAQ). But even before works enter the public domain, the public is free to make "fair uses" of copyrighted works.

By carving out a space for creative uses of music, literature, movies, and so on, even while the works are protected by copyright, fair use helps to reduce a tension between copyright law and the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression. The Supreme Court has described fair use as "the guarantee of breathing space for new expression within the confines of Copyright law."1

How does the court know if a use is fair?

Whether a use is fair will depend on the specific facts of the use. Note that attribution has little to do with fair use; unlike plagiarism, copyright infringement (or non-infringement) doesn't depend on whether you give credit to the source from which you copied. Fair use is decided by courts on a case-by-case basis after balancing the four factors listed in section 107 of the Copyright Act. Those factors are:

The purpose and character of the use of copyrighted work

Transformative quality - Is the new work the same as the copyrighted work, or have you transformed the original work, using it in a new and different way?
Commercial or noncommercial - Will you make money from the new work, or is it intended for nonprofit, educational, or personal purposes? Commercial uses can still be fair uses, but courts are more likely to find fair use where the use is for noncommercial purposes.

The nature of the copyrighted work
A particular use is more likely to be considered fair when the copied work is factual rather than creative.
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
How much of the copyrighted work did you use in the new work? Copying nearly all of the original work, or copying its "heart," may weigh against fair use. But "how much is too much" depends on the purpose of the second use. Parodies, for example, may need to make extensive use of an original work to get the point across.2

The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work
This factor applies even if the original is given away for free. If you use the copied work in a way that substitutes for the original in the market, that will weigh against fair use. Uses of copyrighted material that serve a different audience or purpose are more likely to be considered fair.

These factors are guidelines, and they are not exclusive. As a general matter, courts are often interested in whether or not the individual making use of a work has acted in good faith.

What has been recognized as fair use?

Many types of uses have been found to be fair. Here's a small sample:

Criticism & Commentary
A book publisher used several stills from the famous 1963 Zapruder footage of President Kennedy's assassination for the historical book Six Seconds in Dallas. Time Inc., the owner of the footage, sued the book publisher for copyright infringement. In Time Inc. v. Bernard Geis Associates, the court ruled that the publisher's use of the stills was "fair and reasonable," in part because the use was based on a factual and historical news event.3

Parody
An episode of the TV cartoon "Family Guy" made fun of comedian Carol Burnett's image and signature characters from her 1960's comedy variety show. In Carol Burnett v. Twentieth Century Fox, the court ruled that the show's use was fair, in part because the "Family Guy" episode was designed to parody Burnett as a public figure, using a relatively small percentage of copyrighted material, and would not substitute for the original in any market.4

News reporting
The Washington Post newspaper used three brief quotations from Church of Scientology texts that were posted on the Internet. In Religious Technology Center v. Pagliarina, the court found the use to be fair, in part because the newspaper excerpted only a small portion of the work and the purpose was for news commentary.5

Art
American artist Jeff Koons used a portion of a designer photo advertisement (a model's legs in Gucci sandals) amongst a collection of iconic images in his painting, "Niagara." In Blanch v. Koons, the court held that the painting's use of the copyrighted images was a transformative fair use, in part because it commented on fashion and consumer culture.6

Scholarship and Research
A biographer of author Richard Wright quoted from six of Wright's unpublished letters and ten unpublished journal entries. In Wright v. Warner Books, Inc., the court found that the biographer's use was fair, in part because the biographer's purpose was to educate and inform the public, and his use constituted less than 1% of Wright's unpublished letters. 7
A researcher at a nonprofit foundation used quotations from an unpublished, historical literary work in her academic presentation. In Sundeman v. The Seajay Society, the court ruled that the researcher's use was fair and noted that the work was transformative and was used solely for the purpose of scholarly analysis. 8

Time-shifting
A major electronics manufacturer developed a video tape recording device that allowed the consumer to "time-shift"—record a complete TV program in real-time and hold the show for a later viewing. Several major film studios filed a copyright infringement suit against the electronics manufacturer claiming the device could be used for copyright infringement. In 1984's Sony v. Universal Studios (aka the Betamax case), the Supreme Court held that time-shifting with a VCR qualified as fair use. The courts noted that the private, non-commercial home taping of free television programs for later viewing was not infringing and did not hurt the market value of the copyrighted material.9

Search Engines
A Google search engine turned the photos on a subscription-only website into thumbnail images for its search results. In Perfect 10 v. Amazon.com et al, the court ruled that Google's use of thumbnail photos was "highly transformative," since the search engine changed the image's original purpose of entertainment and aesthetics into providing Google's users with links to images.10

More on the web site: www.teachingcopyright.org/handout/fair-use-faq

Copyright - fair use - from Stanford University:

What Is Fair Use?

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal infringement.

So what is a “transformative” use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general rules and varied court decisions, because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation.

Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: (1) commentary and criticism, or (2) parody.

Commentary and Criticism

If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work — for instance, writing a book review — fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism include:

quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review
summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in a news report
copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or student in a lesson, or
copying a portion of a Sports Illustrated magazine article for use in a related court case.

The underlying rationale of this rule is that the public reaps benefits from your review, which is enhanced by including some of the copyrighted material. Additional examples of commentary or criticism are provided in the examples of fair use cases.

Parody

A parody is a work that ridicules another, usually well-known work, by imitating it in a comic way. Judges understand that, by its nature, parody demands some taking from the original work being parodied. Unlike other forms of fair use, a fairly extensive use of the original work is permitted in a parody in order to “conjure up” the original.

fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/

As always, Ted, you are a wealth of information.

While I have read similar definitions, I tend to shy away from attempting to make my use "fit" into a definition of fair use.

While I do feel if I published my movie reviews as an eBook/POD, I probably would not have a problem but because I have been in the publishing field for many years, I am sensitive to the rights of various artists, writers, photographers etc. I just really wanted to do it right.

The movie reviews are so old now, not sure I'd find an audience but who knows :-)

Thanks again for the info.

[chelsfield]

When I have sought copyright permissions, it has been for use in non-fiction. Publishers have given me a form and I have sent this around to those whose work I have used, excluding excerpts covered by fair use. 

While the excerpts Ted has provided are useful, there are grey areas. For example, in one of my non-fiction publications, I reproduced web pages. These I requested permission to use. Any image I would make a request to use. 

And I would be especially careful of anything in the music or fiction/poetry industries. As Serban pointed out, these industries are notoriously litigious (Happy Birthday anyone?), and sites like yOutube are their hunting grounds. I gave an example in one of my books where a library service used a song as part of its staff training. They uploaded it to youtube and were immediately slammed. Now, there is a lot of copyright abuse on youtube, but a library training video? Talk about small fry.

You know who can be real beasts about this: descendents/relatives of writers. Any author with a dedicated foundation will usually be trouble, especially if the work in question is poetry. Fan fiction treads a real thin line: JK Rowling one went after a fanfiction encyclopedia of characters....

Then again, some of these industries have reason. Every time someone posts a whole article, instead of just a link to that article, on blogs, websites etc they are taking away clicks, money whatever from the originator. This is copyright infringement and it surprising how few people know. I guess if you go after enough small fry maybe people will start to learn. 

Sorry, Ria, for gOing off track a bit. Julie's suggestion is a sound one (putting a note that says you tried but no response). But that is still risky. Be prepared for having to delete the lyrics at the very least. 

[serbanvcenache]

Jun 5, 2016 23:12:32 GMT -8 chelsfield said:

Every time someone posts a whole article, instead of just a link to that article, on blogs, websites etc they are taking away clicks, money whatever from the originator. This is copyright infringement and it surprising how few people know. I guess if you go after enough small fry maybe people will start to learn.

I wouldn't say it's "taking away clicks". If you have an obscure blog & do that, you're not stealing traffic from the link owner's website. On the contrary, your audience may click on the link to read from the source. It helps with dissemination of actual information anyway. To be sure, it is copyright infringement, but it's an exercise in futility to go after people who do this. It likely earns the owner in question bad PR. I remember when Games Workshop went after some author on Amazon who used the two words "Space Marine" in a larger book title. I don't recall all the specifics, but Amazon didn't take it off, the author was allowed to keep those two words in his or her title, and it earned GW bad press.

[Ria Stone]

Jun 5, 2016 23:12:32 GMT -8 chelsfield said:

When I have sought copyright permissions, it has been for use in non-fiction. Publishers have given me a form and I have sent this around to those whose work I have used, excluding excerpts covered by fair use. 

While the excerpts Ted has provided are useful, there are grey areas. For example, in one of my non-fiction publications, I reproduced web pages. These I requested permission to use. Any image I would make a request to use. 

And I would be especially careful of anything in the music or fiction/poetry industries. As Serban pointed out, these industries are notoriously litigious (Happy Birthday anyone?), and sites like yOutube are their hunting grounds. I gave an example in one of my books where a library service used a song as part of its staff training. They uploaded it to youtube and were immediately slammed. Now, there is a lot of copyright abuse on youtube, but a library training video? Talk about small fry.

You know who can be real beasts about this: descendents/relatives of writers. Any author with a dedicated foundation will usually be trouble, especially if the work in question is poetry. Fan fiction treads a real thin line: JK Rowling one went after a fanfiction encyclopedia of characters....

Then again, some of these industries have reason. Every time someone posts a whole article, instead of just a link to that article, on blogs, websites etc they are taking away clicks, money whatever from the originator. This is copyright infringement and it surprising how few people know. I guess if you go after enough small fry maybe people will start to learn. 

Sorry, Ria, for gOing off track a bit. Julie's suggestion is a sound one (putting a note that says you tried but no response). But that is still risky. Be prepared for having to delete the lyrics at the very least. 


Hola Chelsfield:

Thanks for providing examples of how you used copyright permissions. Good advice. The note about relatives of writers is interesting and useful.


I think you are right, getting copyright permission for use of various text or images for use in nonfiction is probably easier.


Thanks, keep writing

[chelsfield]

Jun 5, 2016 23:52:27 GMT -8 serbanvcenache said:

Jun 5, 2016 23:12:32 GMT -8 chelsfield said:

I wouldn't say it's "taking away clicks". If you have an obscure blog & do that, you're not stealing traffic from the link owner's website. On the contrary, your audience may click on the link to read from the source. It helps with dissemination of actual information anyway. To be sure, it is copyright infringement, but it's an exercise in futility to go after people who do this. It likely earns the owner in question bad PR. I remember when Games Workshop went after some author on Amazon who used the two words "Space Marine" in a larger book title. I don't recall all the specifics, but Amazon didn't take it off, the author was allowed to keep those two words in his or her title, and it earned GW bad press.

Whichever way you look at it, it steals traffic whether it's a small site from a big or a big from a small.  And not just from the particular page, but potentially the whole site, and little or big, sites live and die by clicks.

And one obscure site, yes, no sweat especially for a big online news site. But the internet is not just one obscure site, it's millions, billions of obscure sites. By themselves, not much. In aggregate a significant loss of traffic. I take your point about bad publicity: I thought that with Rowling. But what these big names gamble on is not so much 'bad' publicity to do damage (anyone stop reading HP books or going to HP world? I think not), but enough publicity it will put off a bunch of obscure sites. 

As I said, it's still stealing traffic, it's illegal, and those obscure sites would be cheesed off if someone was stealing wholesale from them. 

[serbanvcenache]

I don't know anyone who reads (entire) WSJ articles from their friends' blogs. Usually, it's a quoted paragraph, a link to the whole thing, and then the blogger's comment on it. It's not traffic stealing if the audience of those millions of obscure sites are not consumers of the source. The same goes for the audience of torrent sites. People who don't purchase software, music, movies etc but use torrent sites are not the target demographic of the companies/producers in question. And open-source sites are not the cause for "bad sales figures" of these companies. The bad sales figures are the result of bad business practices (and they are many & widespread). Gabe Newell of Valve has this to say on piracy. "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. [...] Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty. [...] piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe."
www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/interviews/0012301-interview-gabe-newell.html
Plus, there's a feedback loop in all of this. If the content is good in the eyes of the obscure site's audience or the audience of the respective torrent site, people will check out the author or product/service at source & pay for it and/or share it via social media & leave positive reviews/comments.

[chelsfield]

My point originally pertained to websites where entire articles were copied, not just excerpts. And just because  "the audience of those millions of obscure sites are not consumers of the source
" does not mean they do not have the potential to be. If they just had a link instead of an entire article or significant chunks of an article, perhaps they could be.

I take your point: references to other sources often create interest in those sources. Copyright and DRM can be too prohibitive, no question. However, I have interviewed and worked with publishers myself who have the direct opposite experience of the example you cite from Valve (their problems were with piracy from Korea).

As it appears you are not willing to take my point, we appear to be at a stalemate....

[serbanvcenache]

I agree with you that it is illegal; I'm just saying that the net effects are difficult to calculate. And I'm inclined to think that the net is positive, not negative.