Comments for Crackerjack Marketing at StephanieSchwab.com

Comment on Sweepstakes & Contest Rules for Bloggers (and Brands) by Stephanie Schwab

Stephanie Schwab — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:40:00 +0000

Sara, thank you so much for weighing in! I felt like there had to be a provision for criticism….but I wasn’t 100% sure. Really appreciate your insight.

Comment on Sweepstakes & Contest Rules for Bloggers (and Brands) by Sara Hawkins

Sara Hawkins — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:00:00 +0000

@socialologist:disqus @b4d5fe6442a167f722900f05c3847513:disqus while many bloggers do offer their blog contents under a Creative Commons license, most do not. And even if the blog in question was under a Creative Commons license chances are there would need to be some type of attribution, which there is not.

So let’s assume that a Creative Commons license would not apply.

We’re left with the question, “Is the above screen cap a copyright violation?” Possibly, because it appears to meet the minimum requirement for Copyright is that it is a published original work of authorship. The list likely would not be subject to copyright because lists usually are not. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say the screen cap is subject to copyright. Is the image an infringement? I’d argue that it is not due to the Fair Use doctrine.

The Fair Use doctrine permits the republishing of copyrighted works under certain circumstances, namely commentary and criticism. I think this article’s main topic is a commentary/criticism of the (potentially) copyrighted work.

So, even if the author wants to claim copyright in the original work, should Stephanie raise the Fair Use defense it’s likely to prevail.

Disclosure: The above comment is legal information only. I am an attorney and practice in the area of intellectual property law. This reply is not to be construed as legal advice.

Comment on Sweepstakes & Contest Rules for Bloggers (and Brands) by Stephanie Schwab

Stephanie Schwab — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:52:00 +0000

Very good question, indeed. Most blogs are produced under a “creative commons” license which allows other bloggers to link to them and share their content. However, in this case I didn’t want to attribute because I didn’t want to call the blogger out. I don’t know all that much about copyright law (like I said in the post, I’m not a lawyer!), so I may have violated it here in some way. Now I feel bad If there are any attorneys out there who can comment and tell us whether this was a copyright violation or not…I’d really appreciate it!

Comment on Sweepstakes & Contest Rules for Bloggers (and Brands) by Stephanie

Stephanie — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:35:50 +0000

I’m glad to see that someone on the “sweeper” side gets the issues! Thanks so much for reading.

Comment on Editorial calendar continued: Blog calendar template by Stephanie

Stephanie — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:35:16 +0000

So glad it’s helpful! Thanks for reading.

Comment on Editorial calendar continued: Blog calendar template by Carol

Carol — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:21:00 +0000

Great idea and thanks for sharing. This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

Comment on Sweepstakes & Contest Rules for Bloggers (and Brands) by Winterlady

Winterlady — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:19:00 +0000

Just curious,but isn’t it copyright infringement to post that photo of the sample blog that you are talking about? Even with the black spaces?

Comment on Sweepstakes & Contest Rules for Bloggers (and Brands) by Sweetjessie1

Sweetjessie1 — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:42:00 +0000

Thank you for such an insightful post. While I don’t have a blog I do enter sweepstakes. It still amazes me that as a “sweeper” and consumer most of the blogs and many of the brands risk really bad publicity, not to mention huge attorney fees when they could easily follow the law. It does make one question the ethics of the brands that allow this. If they skip over this, what other laws are they saying don’t apply to them.

Comment on How To Structure A Great Blog Post by How Often Should I Blog? | Social Media School NY

How Often Should I Blog? | Social Media School NY — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:05:56 +0000

[...] learn to write down ideas as they come to you, sketch out your posts and hit the keyboard. Blogging is a practice that requires discipline. Build from one post a [...]

[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The comment’s server IP (69.163.243.216) doesn’t match the comment’s URL host IP (173.236.238.146) and so is spam.

Comment on Sweepstakes & Contest Rules for Bloggers (and Brands) by babybites

babybites — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:53:00 +0000

Thank you for sharing, Stephanie. I have been crying foul play on these things for several years now and it drives me nutty too. I completely stay away from having them on any website I run. I’ve also taking to unfollowing people who run them, especially those who know they aren’t following the rules/law. I’ll make sure to share this with my clients and friends. Word of mouth seems to be the only way to get people to know right/wrong ways of doing these sweepstakes.