Copyright and mind maps

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Someone asked “Does writing down what you read and sharing it as a mind map constitute ‘reproduction’ of coprighted material? any advice?”

Here was my reply:

If you copy a lot of some copyrighted work and publish it, then you are at more risk than if you copy short extracts. “Fair use” is a protection, but not equally in all jurisdictions. Paraphrasing material you extract lessens risk greatly, I believe.

Think of it from the point of view of the originator…

  • will they suffer from your publishing extracted material? For example, no one buys their book because you summarize it so clearly.
  • Or will they benefit? For example, your readers are so interested by your summary that they then rush off to buy the book.

If you give the source (and if it’s on the web, provide a link back to it) there will be much less incentive for the copyright holder to pursue you.

I don’t know what you have in mind by “share a mindmap”. If you mean on the web, well, copyright disputes are often resolved by the person publishing being served a take-down notice and then removing the item. If you include it in a book that is then published, that would be different – you might have to pulp the book and lose a lot of money.

I need to tell you that I am not a lawyer!

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