Expert: Lola Brooks - 4/7/2009

Question
I have a website and I want to put biographies of famous people on my website. But do I need permission from those people to legally put information about them and their lives on my website? What other legal obstacles could I encounter?
Thank you

Answer
When it comes to adding content to your web site, it really depends on where you get the information, how you put the information on your site, and how readily available the information is.

If the biographical information is common knowledge and/or easy to find through other means then it is safe to use this information.  (For instance, if you google an actor's name and thousands of reputable web sites come up with similar information.)  The only problem you have with using this information is if your steal the text "word for word" by simply copy and pasting them from another site.

If the biographical information is not really that common,  you might want to consider citing your source.  The easiest way to do this is to include where you got this information within the sentence, for instance "According to Wikipedia...." You could also link to the source if the source is electronic.

Regarding images- most images are owned by someone else but can be borrowed with permission.  Of all copyright laws, this is probably the one most broken.  Visit this site for more information on this subject http://www.pdimages.com/law/10.htm

With that being said, it is important to be careful when it comes to copyright law but remember there are millions of web sites online and the chances of your one site being targeted for copyright law is going to be pretty unlikely.  The most important thing you need to focus on is using images that are either public domain or borrowed with permission.

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