Legality of Comic Aggregation Website?

[mm29]

Hello, I am considering making a website that will bring together many different web comics/regular comics in a readable/customizable format.

So I was wondering, what is the law in the US surrounding aggregation of other people's online content? All I can find when I look online to answer this question is about news aggregation, which is not what I want to do. To be clear, I want to make a website that will ideally allow users to access any comic ever published by anyone. Would I just have to go and make individual licensing deals with each author in order to legally use their content? Or is there some kind of legal loophole by like making each image a link or something like that? Or is there some other kind of weird thing similar to the way Pandora pays artists very little by taking advantage of FCC rules surrounding radio licensing?

Also, if this kind of thing is not legal, which I suspect, I was wondering how websites like reddit and StumbleUpon get away with aggregating content from other websites. And also, specifically, the website that I found that's closest to what I want to do is www.comicagg.com, which aggregates enough comics that it seems unlikely to me that they pay for them. So I was wondering if they get away with this because they are not popular enough to be sued, or if there is actually some kind of relevant law.

Thanks

 

[quincy]

Hello, I am considering making a website that will bring together many different web comics/regular comics in a readable/customizable format.

So I was wondering, what is the law in the US surrounding aggregation of other people's online content? All I can find when I look online to answer this question is about news aggregation, which is not what I want to do. To be clear, I want to make a website that will ideally allow users to access any comic ever published by anyone. Would I just have to go and make individual licensing deals with each author in order to legally use their content? Or is there some kind of legal loophole by like making each image a link or something like that? Or is there some other kind of weird thing similar to the way Pandora pays artists very little by taking advantage of FCC rules surrounding radio licensing?

Also, if this kind of thing is not legal, which I suspect, I was wondering how websites like reddit and StumbleUpon get away with aggregating content from other websites. And also, specifically, the website that I found that's closest to what I want to do is www.comicagg.com, which aggregates enough comics that it seems unlikely to me that they pay for them. So I was wondering if they get away with this because they are not popular enough to be sued, or if there is actually some kind of relevant law.

Thanks

Are you located in the US, mm29? If not, from what country are you posting?

In the US, you would need permission from the copyright holder, generally granted in the form of a license, to publish copyrighted material. This is the case under the copyright laws of most countries in the world.

Some websites violate copyright laws when it comes to publishing the copyrighted content of others - and these sites can be sued for their infringement. In the US, however, the website owner or host of the content on the site might escape liability over material posted by a third party. This protection from liability comes from the Communications Decency Act, Section 230.

In addition, there is a "safe harbor" from suit provided under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if a web host removes infringing content upon notification from the copyright holder.

Some sites, however, have obtained licensing from the copyright holders and legally display or make available copyrighted content for personal uses.

 

[mm29]

thanks

I am in the US, thanks!

 

[quincy]

I am in the US, thanks!

Thank you for returning to the forum with the requested information, mm29, and thank you for the thanks.

If you decide to go forward with your comic website, I wish you good luck with it.