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Hi everyone i know this is not programming related question but i need help,

I have developed an android application where in show some articles to users most of the articles are copied from various websites (around 5).

My app basically has 2 tabs one displays the content in Pure text (complete news content from source website) with single image (link from article site) and another view where in i take the user to website itself (i display the user the website itself) .

1) Should i be worried about getting sued (if seen from other angle the source website will also make revenue from my app as their websites are being viewed) (i even show disclaimer saying "all articles belong to respective owners")

2) I did even think like instead of copying full article text i can copy say 30% and at the end of it make to user to view full website to read complete article from source site like this both in profit.

3) Please suggest if there is any other alternative

Thanks for any sort of help

Lokanath
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    You would have had better reception checking out law stackexchange – Script Kitty Jul 03 '16 at 16:09
  • @Script Kitty ty will give a try out there – Lokanath Jul 03 '16 at 16:22
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about copyright / licensing / intellectual property / legal issues instead of directly about programming. [[See here](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/274963/1402846)] for details and the [[help]] for more. – Pang Jul 04 '16 at 02:59

1 Answers1

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Should i be worried about getting sued (if seen from other angle the source website will also make revenue from my app as their websites are being viewed) (i even show disclaimer saying "all articles belong to respective owners")

Directly copying content even though you say who the original owners are, there is a chance you get sued. But there is always a chance to get sued no matter what. Flipboard takes articles from several sites and shove it into one app and link to the original owners. Perfectly legal.

I did even think like instead of copying full article text i can copy say 30% and at the end of it make to user to view full website to read complete article from source site like this both in profit.

Most people do not want to navigate to a third party site to read the full article.

Please suggest if there is any other alternative

If you are earning money of other people's content it is not legal. If you are earning money of it you have to give a certain percentage to the respective owner. This is usually worked out by you having an agreement with the owner which means you have to contact them.

Flipboard is an app that takes articles from several sites and shove them into one app. They have ads in the app, however:

  • the ads inside the articles are "owned" by the site that has the article
  • The ads outside articles are "owned" by Flipboard, but there are few of those. The ads inside the articles earn other people money because they have to monitize their own content. It is just like songs on youtube, you can republish songs, but if you earn money of it without sharing with the original owner(s) it is not legal

Also keep in mind Flappy Bird. It has been ripped off so much. Same with 2048. Apps get ripped off and content gets ripped off, but in some way most of it is legal

Zoe
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