How Much of a Source's Material Can I Quote in My Post?

Clearly, copying an entire article or post from another site would be stealing. But quoting a phrase from a sentence in the same article is obviously not stealing. How much can you use? Well, somewhere in between.

"Fair use" is a legal doctrine related to copyright that all bloggers should know about. From the Wikipedia article linked above:

Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. It is based on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

If it sounds like a fuzzy concept, it is. This is good for intellectual property litigators, but it means that the rest of us have to use equal parts caution and common sense when quoting. Because fair use is a fuzzy concept, and because BlueNC does not have any intellectual property attorneys on hand, please understand that nothing in this answer is legal advice!

Instead, here are some basic blogging community standards that have developed over the years:

• Always link to the source of your quotations if they are online;
• Whether or not the source is online, be clear about who and what you are quoting – don't bury this information behind links;
• Don't quote more than you need to to make your point – you will find that you're writing much tighter, more persuasive posts if you take the time to figure out exactly what about your source you want to comment on, and limit yourself to small quotations that help you make your point;
• Don't trade quoting in for re-organizing and rewording your source's sentences – this is simply sneaky.

If you're not sure, don't push it – there really is no substitute for your own words and analysis!