Project Memory Wiki

January 11, 2006 11:32 AM

I run a project called MemoryWiki that collects and archives personal memories. I was wondering if I could repost some short memoirs from MetaFilter, namely, those on "life changing experiences" found here here. I will of course include a note on every memoir I repost stating that the source is Metafilter (and I'll include a hyperlink). MemoryWiki is non-profit (it's really just a hobby). Is this kosher? Thanks.
posted by MarshallPoe to MetaFilter-Related at 11:32 AM (12 comments total)

I would think that would be up to each individual poster whose memoir you want to use.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:37 AM on January 11, 2006

Don't repost anything without each individual poster's permission. You can contact each person via the email address in their profile and invite them to submit their own memories.

MemoryWiki was already featured on the front page, in case anyone missed it.
posted by Gator at 11:44 AM on January 11, 2006

Don't repost anything without each individual poster's permission.

agreed.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:07 PM on January 11, 2006

yeah, the all posts &copy their original authors bit is there to require that you email each author that wrote something you'd like to copy to request permission first.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:20 PM on January 11, 2006

*scratches head*
I've seen some pretty longass quotes on blogs before. How would this be different?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 12:20 PM on January 11, 2006

It's not different. Many of those longass quotes you see in other places are arguably violating copyright. In any case, even if this is fair use, the polite thing to do would obviously be to contact the individual poster.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:34 PM on January 11, 2006

And, of course, politely contacting the individual poster removes the need to even wonder if it is fair use.
posted by cortex at 12:39 PM on January 11, 2006

Exactly.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:43 PM on January 11, 2006

Politely asking, the need for which should be obvious, seems different than a requirement, though. Is it an open wiki?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 12:56 PM on January 11, 2006

It seems to be a slightly different sort of borrowing if you're using the quotes as your main content instead of using quotes just to highlight other blogworthy issues. I don't think there would be a problem either way, I just think it would be polite to ask people first.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:59 PM on January 11, 2006

As an aside, Marshall, I'd really think a little harder about whether you want to post other people's memories in the first place instead of having them do it themselves. Looking through the recent changes on MemoryWiki, I see several memories that have been posted by you but attributed to others (Moscow Coup, Dion in NYC, Interviewing John and Yoko, for example), and while I assume you had permission to do so, it still seems a little peculiar. I understand that you want content for your site, but wouldn't you rather stick with the concept of letting people put it there themselves? Copyright issues aside, if you start collecting stories from all over the place on your own, it starts to look more like "Stuff From Other Sites That I Think Is Interesting" than "Original Content In the Form Of Memories People Have Contributed."
posted by Gator at 1:11 PM on January 11, 2006

Thanks to everyone. Yes, I agree that I should contact the authors; just wanted to see what others thought. This has always been my practice, and will continue to be whenever possible (sometimes you can't find the author...).

As to Gator's question, yes, it would be better if folks just posted their memoirs themselves (and a lot less work for me!). But some people send them by email (especially older folks who are less web savvy), and other folks just say "I've got this memoir of x on web site y that you can use." In these cases, I just post them myself with the proper attribution. I guess I could browbeat people into doing it themselves, but since they're *already* giving me their content...

Thanks again to everyone.
posted by MarshallPoe at 1:34 PM on January 11, 2006