Am I confused about the legal system of writing non-fiction books or is it in fact possible to use copyright law to suppress the discovery of information related to conspiracy theories?

Imagine the government assigns many disinfo agents to pose as legitimate researchers who have discovered key information regarding well known conspiracies. These researchers all document their discoveries and theories in individual books websites and videos that are all pieces of the puzzle yet they mix in a bit of disinfo to take people off the actual trail.

So imagine someone comes along and discovers how all these numerous pieces fit together but in order to prove this to others it would require permission from all these copyright holders to reproduce their work..

The person who put the pieces together could write a book that vaguely covers the elements of the entire puzzle.. but in order to really understand it, others would need to see all the evidence that is controlled by the individual copyright holders and to do this they too would need to read all these books which most would be unlikely to do and if they did they would be confused by the disinfo mixed in...

Am I wrong or could this method be used as a form of suppression?

From my understanding, if you were to try to paraphrase these works entirely you would be damaging the market for the original work and you could have your work taken off the market and if they sued you, you would be financially responsible and would even have to pay their legal fees for suing you.

OR is it possible to paraphrase their entire work and make a knock-off of all these pieces without getting sued?

Believe it or not but this is the actual position I feel I am in. I am not a writer though and I am trying to understand the process of writing non-fiction and what is acceptable.

I don't understand why someone couldn't just write the book and reference as needed the information in the other works. Unless they're quoting huge chunks of material or actually reproducing copyrighted photos, there would be no copyright violation.

I think that perhaps your understanding of copyright is muddled. At the very least you should maybe look it up on Wikipedia. Also, be on the lookout for the term "Fair Use."

Originally posted by Toromos
I don't understand why someone couldn't just write the book and reference as needed the information in the other works. Unless they're quoting huge chunks of material or actually reproducing copyrighted photos, there would be no copyright violation.

Well I am speaking from my own experience.. and to fully understand this information I feel people would need to see most of the information they provide.

This is the problem I am currently having. so much of the information is someone else's proprietary information that I would need to tell people to read all these different books.

I could put little excerpts but I don't think it would be enough to fully sway people and have them understand everything..

I could try to contact these people and ask to use material.. but guess what... if you do that and they say no then you will get in more trouble than if you didn't ask at all from my understanding.

So as I see it the system is totally set up to prevent people from using others proprietary information. I think they could easily manipulate things to enhance this as well by using kind of "terrorist" acts for lack of a better term. So by abusing the system and creating precedents that prevented people from sharing information they could REALLY use this to suppress information from spreading.

For example.. there is a guy who has a site that details info I need to make my case.. he has images showing experiments he did to demonstrate this.. how can I demonstrate to people what he did without showing these illustrations and experiments? From my understanding if I try to reproduce these same elements in the same order I could be screwed.

This problem is really apparent in science journals as well.. we can't even READ these without subscriptions and the rules are even stricter there..

And the beauty (horror) of this again is they can manipulate the system by abusing it and creating precedents that help them suppress all the info.

BUT.. maybe I am wrong and it isn't this complex or there are work-a-rounds. but from my understanding you need a lawyer to find out and I don't have the money.

Originally posted by Ex_CT2
I think that perhaps your understanding of copyright is muddled. At the very least you should maybe look it up on Wikipedia. Also, be on the lookout for the term "Fair Use."

I have been researching this heavily for awhile.. I have been talking to lawyers on a site where you can ask them questions the past 2 days. They say I need to pay for a lawyer.

The problem is according to fair use you can only use like 200 words or a few lines.. and guess what.. if it is key to the book then even if it is one line they can sue you.

Also, from my understanding this even applies to re-wording and paraphrasing. If you paraphrase too much then they can sue you.

Maybe I am wrong but from my understanding if you damage the market for the book then you are violating.

How do you relate the info needed from the book without damaging the market of the book?

Supposedly you can't copyright facts and ideas though... this is where it gets confusing though.. because different rules conflict with each other.

Originally posted by TheKeyMaster
...

I have been researching this heavily for awhile.. I have been talking to lawyers on a site where you can ask them questions the past 2 days. They say I need to pay for a lawyer.

...

Whoa! A lawyer-referral site advised you to hire a lawyer?

Just kidding. I don't think you need to hire a lawyer; I think you need to re-assess what you're trying to accomplish. For example, are you planning a book that rebuts someone else's books point-for-point? If that's the case, then you may want to reconsider your approach. Other people have written books rebutting someone else's ideas without using an unnatural number or volume of quotes....

Originally posted by Ex_CT2

Originally posted by TheKeyMaster
...

I have been researching this heavily for awhile.. I have been talking to lawyers on a site where you can ask them questions the past 2 days. They say I need to pay for a lawyer.

...

Whoa! A lawyer-referral site advised you to hire a lawyer?

Just kidding. I don't think you need to hire a lawyer; I think you need to re-assess what you're trying to accomplish. For example, are you planning a book that rebuts someone else's books point-for-point? If that's the case, then you may want to reconsider your approach. Other people have written books rebutting someone else's ideas without using an unnatural number or volume of quotes....

I have seen this question asked repeatedly by people though... not just me. I agree with you though that self interest is likely a part of it in their case. But I have searched and searched online to find a definitive answer to this.

This book doesn't rebut others work but it requires several sources who provide unique pieces to the puzzle.. and no one else provides these pieces...

BUT.. they are missing or ignoring certain aspects that tie everything together and show what is really going on.

I spoke to someone that is familiar with this subject matter who knew a deceased scientist who worked in this field and they were amazed.. they said I should write a book. I can't express to you how important this info is.. it will change the world.. the timing of me discovering all this is the really creepy part.

Copyright doesn't protect an idea, it protects the expression of an idea. So no.

Copyright law protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. So if I write a book about, let's pretend, Atlantis, then you cannot "copy" (as in verbatim) what I wrote. But you can still write a book about Atlantis, using your own words. The IDEA of Atlantis having existed is not copyrightable, but the exression of how I write about Atlantis is.

You also cannot copyright a title. So if I write a book entitled "Atlantis was Real!" you can write a different book entitled, "Atlantis is Real!" and not violate copyright. Though that would be pretty stupid, IMO.

So, short answer to your question is, "No."

PsykoOps beat me by a minute. We're still both correct. As a professional librarian who has dealt with this for an entire career, I have encountered this issue a zillion times, attended and led seminars on the subject ad nauseum. Take it to the bank.

Let's put it this way.. is an entire book just an idea?

If it was that simple then why did they need to write that long book and why did they copyright it?

Can you show me an example where someone copies nearly the entire contents of another persons non-fiction book and includes it in theirs even if they reword everything?

Here is an excerpt from a web page describing fair use..

Limit your borrowing, both

Quantitatively: Quote or closely paraphrase as little as possible to make your point: under 10% is best; above 20% is high risk (though a recent case allowed that, where mainly facts were copied).

Qualitatively: Avoid using the “heart” of the original, what most people would buy the work to read.
Avoid uses that replace (i.e., are market substitutes for) the original.

The only thing that makes me think you guys might be right is this part - or closely paraphrase.

If you don't closely paraphrase can you use as much as you want? Why doesn't it say that here or anywhere??

It also doesn't say if it applies to fiction or non fiction or both..

This is one of the most tedious threads I've seen in a while. OP, your question has been answered repeatedly. I don't see why you fail to accept the answer you have been given from multiple sources. It is the correct one.

At least, in the USA this is correct. I can not say about UK or international copyright law. Are you in the UK, perchance? I ask because I don't recall your mentioning a country of origin, and the link you provided talks about copyright in the UK, specifically.

Simply stated for you (yet again) published research data is not proprietary in any way. You can reproduce the data from research with no worries. Why don't you pick up a long fiction book. Something about a serious topic. A professionally published book, nothing self published. Maybe grab 2 or 3 just in case. Do you see footnotes with references at the bottom of some pages, or at the end of chapters, or at the end of the book? Each of these describes where the author of the book got their information from. Authors reference the work of others all the time.

I will point out that a book which references ONLY one work, and which is based entirely on that one other work is pretty rare. I can't think of one, though it's possible it exists. The reason for this, I think is simple. Aside from toeing right up to the boundaries of copyright law, if the entirety of the book you want to write can be pulled from another work, then why even bother writing one? It's already written. Is it money? I don't get it.

As stated, you can reproduce data from research. You can take the opinions, observations, analysis of the authors in the book you're referencing, and you can reproduce them in your own words. As I said before, it would be good to add your own thoughts on their data, otherwise, what is the point of even writing a book?


Maybe there is something that makes your situation strange or unique which you have failed to tell us? Otherwise, I think you have your answer.