The use of others' copyrighted work under the fair use doctrine is how we bloggers survive. But there are limits to what fair use allows us to use.

Vickie culled this handy list from a primer at the Citizen Media Law Project Blog.

• Use only as much of the copyrighted work as is necessary to accomplish your purpose or convey your message.
• Use the work in such a way that it is clear that your purpose is commentary, news reporting, or criticism.
• Add something new or beneficial (don't just copy it -- improve it!).
• If your source is nonfiction, limit your copying to the facts and data.
• Seek out Creative Commons or other freely licensed works when such substitutions can be made and respect the attribution requests in those works.

Understand that copyright protection applies to all works created by others. Even to a blog post I may write on a bar napkin. I don't need to put a fancy 'c' on it or file any sort of registration. Same applies to newspaper stories or photos from flickr.

Don't get freaked out about liability. If it wasn't for the New York Times or Washington Post, I'm not sure CNN would have anything to report. You'll regularly see them scroll a paragraph or two as to what one of the papers is reporting. It will be followed with short commentary from an 'expert.'

Same goes for small town TV and radio stations who borrow liberally from the local newspaper. Think of yourself as a blogger reporting on events, writings, and the law while adding insight and commentary.

If you don't have Vickie in your RSS feeds, you may wish to add her. She's a prolific, insightful, and entertaining blogger at her own Settle It Now blog and the IP ADR Blog at which she's a co-author.

...[L]et me offer one example. The blog purports to be that of a company that provides services to the legal profession. All posts are 'signed' by the blog's author and relate to the company's services. But virtually every post is the full text of an article taken from another source. The blog does nothing to indicate this. It does not introduce the piece with an explanatory note and it uses no quotation marks or indentation to suggest it is taken from elsewhere. Only if you click through to the second page of the post and read to the very bottom is the source attributed. Granted, this is better than no attribution, but it is misleading and sure to confuse many readers.

In another example, the blog is purportedly written by two authors, both of whom provide services to the legal profession. The blog's description makes it sound as if its posts are the authors' observations. Here again, virtually all recent posts are taken in full from sources such as Law.com. This blog does better than the other, in that it identifies the source at the bottom of the post on the first page, rather than at the bottom on the second page. Again, however, no introduction identifies the article as from elsewhere and no quotes are used to show this.

Bob says he has no idea if these guys asked permission. I bet my house they didn't. Heck, most of them do it to for Google Juice driven legally related keywords. They're looking to run google ads or market ill conceived legal services products to unsuspecting lawyers.

Bob, you are being way too polite in your post assuming some have received permission by offering a few small steps to remedy this lack of transparency. Let's just have rules on how to steal blog content. No need to create new ones.

We'll use Greg Storey's 'How to properly steal the design of a website' as a guide.

In abbreviated form (with subtle changes), here's 4 of Greg's 5 rules we can label, 'How to properly steal content for your law blog.'

1. First things first, admit it: you suck. You're a moron and a cheat. It's likely that you'll never ever really achieve anything in life because you lack the talent to create or to do anything for yourself.
2. Learn. Yes, put some brain cells together, and learn how to properly edit HTML [write a blog post]. Sure, you think you already know HTML [content writing] because you've been able to cut-and-paste someone else's code[content]—that's why you're a thief. Most people would use that code [read that content] to learn how to craft their own work, but since you're a scumbag you only know how to get away with the least amount of work.
3. When you send that email to the original designer [blogger] asking if it's "okay" that you took the design [blog post] in the first place, I just want to know one thing: are you doing this before or after you've tried to mate with oncoming traffic? Please re-read step number one and then come back here.
4. This is quite possibly the most important thing you need to know. There are no circumstances that will ever make it a good idea to link to the site you stole the design [blog post] from. None. Zip. Never, ever. Zero circumstances. Maybe when Armageddon starts, but you should make it quick because...well, hey, it's Armageddon, and it's not going to wait...

Don't get me wrong. We're America. We have Fair Use - and I am a liberal fair user. Bob and I are talking of the clowns who take content in entirety with little or no attribution.

Google sent out a cease and desist letter to a guy who used Google's logo on a website that informed people how to get their business listed on the search engines. Techdirt, which blogged on this incident, rightfully labeled Google's trademark claim as totally bogus.

While it is true that you need to protect your trademark or risk losing it, it's ridiculous to think that this is a case where the trademark is being infringed or needs to be 'protected.' Google's complaint is that this somehow might confuse people into believing the site was associated with Google and lessens Google's ability to make money. If we pull out the ever popular moron in a hurry test, we find that Google's claims don't stand up. No moron in a hurry is going to think the site is officially associated with Google. As for hurting Google's ability to make money, this is a site that will get more people to use Google -- which is Google's exact defense when newspapers flip out about Google linking to them.

As a blogger, you've got the right to use logos under the Fair Use Doctrine. The same protection that comes with using portions of others' content for critique and commentary, whether it be a blurb from the Wall Street Journal or a block quote from another blog, applies equally to using corporate logos.

From Boston Tech and IP Lawyer Erik Heels, far more of an authority on fair use than I:

If you are writing and commenting about a company, product, or famous person, then it's a no-brainer that it's fair use to use the company's logo, product image, or headshot in your blog post.

Look at business periodicals such as BusinessWeeek. Look at Mike Arrington's TechCrunch. Corporate logos are regularly used when writing about a company. May be why those publications always look pretty sharp.

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