Just Because You Can Do It Doesn't Mean You Should Do It

All of our clients these days are interested in adding relevant articles concerning their industry to their websites. The reasons for this are obvious. This type of technical information adds to the credibility of the website and if the article includes mention of the client's product in a positive light, it acts as an endorsement of the product from a credible outside source. From a search engine perspective, this type of article can provide an important inbound link if the article includes a link back to the client's website.

But what if you want to include this article on your own website as a pdf rather than a link to the publication's article? There's the rub. Most publications offer three options.

1. Purchase reprints of the article (like in the old days) and use it as a hand-out at trade shows and for use by sales people in the field.

2. Purchase a pdf of the article from the publisher to host on your own website. NOTE: Most publishers offer a significant discount for the pdf if hard copies are also purchased.

3. Place a link on your website to the article on the publisher's website.

In this day and age when everyone expects everything on the web to be free or nearly free, clients questions why there should be a cost related to hosting a pdf of a given article on their website. The answer of course comes back to copyright law. The article is part of a publication whose entirety is protected by copyright law. One cannot simply place someone else's protected material on their website. The reason that you can link to an outside website without cost is that there is a tradeoff going on there. By linking to the publication's site, you are increasing their incoming traffic to their site and they are more than happy to have you provide a link to their site just as you would welcome someone outside providing a link to something on your website. The supposition is that you have something on your site that is so valuable that others want to link to it. But there is a difference between the compliment of linking to an article and taking it for the purpose of enhancing your own website.

Imagine someone grabbing a copyrighted photo from your website (something that can be easily done in seconds) and placing it on their website so they don't have to go to the trouble of finding a photo themselves or paying for a stock image. You probably wouldn't be too pleased if this happens. We know because we have had clients complain about this type of behavior in the past.

It's no secret that magazine publishers are looking for every opportunity to create revenue from the online world since their print ad income is down. They have a right to retain ownership for their content and charge for it's use just as you do for any content on your site.

Could you scan the article, make a pdf and host it on your site? Sure. But ethically, it's just not the right thing to do. In short, just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it.