Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California
I am planning a 2 page health and wellness newsletter with paid advertising in it. It will be for free in print and online. It will have health tips, relationship tips but not necessarily written in article form. The research will come from many sources. How do the copyright laws work? There will be a section where I ask experts questions (i.e.) what is yoga? or what is a root canal?. Do I just quote them? Also, when I give a health tip am I able to say" according to many studies..." without quoting the studies? If I was to write �Smoking increases your risk of lung cancer� a statement I consider factual which has been written many times before are there any copyright issues? And finally, If I want to write about (i.e.)vitamin D and it's benefits. I will again be using multiple sources but it is common knowledge, will they're be any copyright issues? Any advice would be greatly appreciated (What I can and can't do without permission)
Thank you
I am located in Canada but would also like info for the United States
1 Answer from Attorneys
Copyright law protects the expression of ideas and facts, NOT the ideas and facts themselves. Therefore, if you're writing your own material, and not just cutting-and-pasting or using large quoted portions from other works, you should be fine. Still, even when you're writing your own interpretation of the results of studies, etc, it's useful to cite the sources, as doing so gives you credibility.
If you ARE copying and pasting, then you need permission from the copyright owners.
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