Here are a couple of sites for exploring the legal aspects of 'fair use':
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
I really enjoy this one and,

http://library.duke.edu/about/depts/scholcomm/copyright-and-fair-use.pdf
This one has a nice set of guidelines.
If you google 'Fair Use' and 'copyright'you'll find many other explanations and helpful discussions.

Yah, knotter, welcome to da forums, eh?

Just out of curiosity.... how do yeh know from looking at a website whether or not

(a) the materials are copyrighted, and
(b) whether or not the site has permission to use 'em?

Lots of different things must be considered in determining whether somthin' is inappropriate with respect to copyright law. Awfully hard to judge from afar without da risk of libeling someone.

I reckon it's a good example to scouts not to be a busybody, eh?

Beavah

So how exactly do you know permission isn't given?

Just saying...you are judging without knowing.

Welcome to the forums. As stated above sometimes permission is given, and sometimes the copyright protection has expired. Also there is something called Fair Use.

Not a lawyer, But the wife has been threatened by copyright lawyers before Luckily it was handled and everyone was happy.

I am the author of the books: Rope Works and Rope Works Plus and a CD thitled Rope Works Animated. I have not given permission for any of my work to be published in any form excep as part of a teaching aid to be used in a class setting. So I am not judging from afar.

As to "fair use" that is a hard term to define. But I believe that part of fair use is to identify the source of the materials used. Maby it is "fair use" to post a page from a book as long as the source of the material is given.

As I understand it from the perspective of an educator, it depends on the context. I tend to side with you on this...to post a page (I'm assuming it's been scanned into pdf or something) without your permission crosses the line in my mind and I wouldn't do it unless a really old document qualified under the publication date restrictions. However, if I needed to post that page from your book in order to demonstrate (teach) a class on the proper layout of a publication or in order to give them an example of poor grammar or perhaps to criticize your content as incorrect, I would defend my publication of that page.

However, if I was on the jury and someone posted a page from your book in order to show how to tie a knot and if you could convince me that this cost you profit from lost sales of the book, I might be persuaded to hand you the verdict.
But if the defendant could show that by posting that page, it stimulated increased sales for the book because people wanted to learn the other knots, that would be a different story.

As a practical matter, a letter from you or your attorney to the offending web site owner would probably, under the weight of its intimidation value, cause them to take it down. Keep in mind that the idea is still available for them to reproduce. They can take the 'method' you describe, redraw the diagrams, and write a new description for the knot and then THEY will have the rights to it.

But keep in mind that I am saying these things NOT from the standpoint of a person trained in legal issues but rather from the standpoint of a person who does use the web in teaching and who takes measures to avoid intimidating letters from offended authors.

So I am in sympathy with your feelings and I wish you luck. But if they're not charging a fee to get the info off their site, the best you can hope for is probably to have the page removed.

I add: I have had entire documents that I have written...published by others under their name and with no credit given to me, so I think I understand how you feel. In my case there was no commercial value (only intellectual value) to the documents so that's tough luck for me.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Knotter,
INTERESTING! Again I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds like you may have a case for copyright infringement, which I do think is a very big deal. As an individual who did have to talk to three copyright lawyers I can tell you that after receiving their letters and phone calls there was MAJOR concerns. Long story short, letters requesting permission to publish cover art from three books in the Mississippi Library Association's monthly journal were sent to three publishers located in the WTC just prior to 9-11-01. Several attempts to get in contact with publishers as well as postponing the article were attempted and failed. 3 years later, wife is getting letters and phone calls. Luckily 2 lawyers got the idea that A) the article was a college paper that was submitted to a student contest ( without wife's knowledge BTW) B)the article was praising the books and recommending them for children's collections, and C) no monetary compensation was given.

Third lawyer was a bull dog type and kept hounding and hounding. Finally when the comment that the publisher should pay for advertising in the journal b/c the article was praising the book and recommending it to the collections of every single public library in MS did they finally back off.