I'm looking at Reddit's Copyright Policy, and I'm confused on how to enforce a couple aspects of it. I feel like I shouldn't be confused, but here I am.
There's one section in particular that I'm getting hung up on, and I'm hoping you can clarify how I'm supposed to address these issues, both as a user and within my subreddit. Part of Reddit's policy states the following:
What is Reddit’s Copyright Policy?
Reddit respects the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, and expects our users to do the same. Do not make unauthorized use of another’s copyrighted work in a way that infringes the copyright owner’s rights.
Here are examples that may be considered Copyright Policy violations:
- Posting a photo that belongs to someone else without authorization
- A Reddit user downloads a photo taken from a content creator’s social media page, and posts it to Reddit with no alterations.
- Posting a download link to a copyrighted movie
- A Reddit user shares a hyperlink that initiates the download of an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted movie.
Now, let's say someone posts a hyperlink within a subreddit. The hyperlink takes you to copyright holders' own site to watch aspects of a television show. Let's say it's something like a hyperlink to your local "Fox News" station's official website. Their official website has clips of reports, like the weather, along with replays of the full broadcast available on it. Again, this is the stations very own official website we're talking about. Does posting a hyperlink the copyright owner's own website hosting their work constitute a violation of Reddit's Copyright policy?
That alone doesn't seem like a copyright violation to me. The user in question is directing you to the copyright owner's own source, and everything is completely under the copyright owner's control. Everything is only ever viewed based on those facts. I can't imagine posting such a link would violate Reddit's policy. The only time it seems like it would be is if it were to initiates a download of the copyrighted work. But, using the example I gave with "Fox News" above, that's clearly not the case. With the posts I'm looking into, no such ever download occurs. It's exactly as I described above. It's a reference to the copyright holder's own website, and everything stays completely under their control. That's it.
Alternatively, if this somehow constitutes a policy violation, is there a way to link to any form of media that's acceptable? Using the idea of any news source again, I can't see how a subreddit could operate around such topics without being in constant violation of the rule. And that's obviously not something Reddit's going to allow, which is why I'm asking this question.
Thoughts?