Hello again jamiedolan-ga.
It's a good thing you pay your taxes, because the federal government,
in its wisdom, has spent some of the tax money you?ve provided to
prepare guides for small businesses. Like all federal government
materials, it is in the "public domain" -- that is, free of copyright
protection, and available for anyone to use as they see fit.
Before diving into the materials themselves, here's a brief
explanation of ?public domain? documents from the very-helpful Digital
Law Online site:
----------
http://www.digital-law-online.com/lpdi1.0/treatise8.html
?The Copyright Act of 1976 specifically exempts works created by the
federal government from copyright protection, continuing a provision
from the previous copyright acts...Note that this is a special rule
that federal government works are always in the "public domain".
Public domain works have no copyright owner, and anyone can use the
work as they see fit without infringement...?
----------
In other words, you can use materials published by the federal
government pretty much in any way you want. Though it?s considered
?good form? to attribute such use back to its source, this is not a
legal requirement, but merely a matter of personal preference.
==========
The motherlode of public-domain documents on starting and running a
small business is the federal Small Business Administration at:
http://sba.gov/
You can pick and choose from hundreds of documents at this site, and,
as I said before, use them as you see fit.
However, THERE?S ONE IMPORTANT CAVEAT!!! If the SBA site itself
quotes from other materials, then assume that the quoted material is
copyrighted. DO NOT USE SUCH QUOTED MATERIAL.
Although it MAY be OK to use such material, it would be a big hassle
to actually find out its status. So the best bet is to simply avoid
it. I?ll show you an example, below, of what I?m talking about.
-----
You many want to have a look at the SBA ?site map? for starters, as it
will provide a quick overview of the type and extent of materials
available at the site. You?ll find the map here:
http://www.sba.gov/map.html
There?s enough material to make one a bit dizzy. The real challenge
is, where to get started. So, head back to the main page:
http://sba.gov/
and you?ll notice along the top of the page several links to broad
topics of interest to small businesses:
Starting Your Business
Financing Your Business
Managing Your Business
Business Opportunities
Disaster Recovery
Each of these links will bring to several dozen documents that focus
on specific issues within the main category. For instance, clicking
on ?Starting Your Business? takes you to:
http://sba.gov/starting_business/index.html
where you can find numerous documents in each of the following categories:
--Startup Basics
--Business Planning
--Financing
--Marketing
--Employees
--Taxes
--Legal Aspects
--Special Interest
For instance, in the ?Startup Basics? area, you can choose from the following:
--Are you ready?
--Finding a Niche
--Buying a Business
--Buying a Franchise
--Checklist for starting a business
-- Protecting Your Ideas
--Product Basics
--Startup Guide
--Specific Training
and clicking on the ?Startup Guide? will take you to:
http://sba.gov/starting_business/startup/guide.html
where you have dozens of MORE choices of things to click on, such as
the ?Getting Started? link which takes you to some of the material I
cited in my response to you the other day:
http://sba.gov/starting_business/startup/guide2.html
----------
NOTE towards the bottom of this page is a section of text that begins:
?To Lease or Not to Lease: Things To Know Get The Answers
Here are some questions to ask before signing a lease:?
and after listing the questions, it says:
?(Source: 327 Questions to Ask Before You Sign a Lease, by B. Alan
Whitson (B. Alan Whitson Co., (800) 452 ?4480.)?
This is example of the cautionary note I made above -- I would not
include the ?To Lease or Not to Lease? question-list in any excerpted
materials, since it did not originate from the federal government, but
came from private, copyrighted materials. Although I?m sure SBA
obtained permission to reproduce the list, it does not necessarily
mean that the permission extends to others who duplicate the material.
----------
Other than that, though, all the material at the site is available for
public use. I did some checking around with a Google search on a
verbatim sentence taken from the SBA site. The sentence was:
?Starting and managing a business takes motivation, desire and talent.?
and searching for it (with the quotes) on Google turns up about a
hundred sites that have used this exact sentence -- and other
materials -- from the SBA site.
This is good news!. It should set your mind at ease about the
propriety of duplicating these materials, as it has been done freely
by others. On the other hand, it has not been done so frequently as
to make the information ?old hat? for visitors to your site. There?s
a lot of valuable material that SBA makes available that continue to
be useful resources to small businesses of all stripes.
A typical example of such use of SBA materials is this credit information site at:
http://www.creditcarecenter.com/business/how_to_start_a_small_business.htm
You can see they?ve adopted the SBA materials pretty much word for
word. Also, at the very bottom of the page, they?ve included a small
note:
?This information is adapted from "Small Business Startup Kit"
Published by the U.S. SBA.?
This type of acknowledgment is considered a professional courtesy.
But as I said earlier, there is no legal requirement to include such a
statement.
==========
I hope this provides the information you need. The biggest challenge
will be sorting through the reams of available materials to find the
documents that will work best for your customers.
If you need any additional information or elaboration of anything I?ve
said here, just let me know by posting a Request for Clarification and
I?ll be happy to assist you further.
Best of luck in you ventures.
pafalafa-ga
search strategy: Used bookmarked sites and existing knowledge of
copyright law as the main resources for answering this question. |
Clarification of Answer by
pafalafa-ga
on
22 Nov 2003 16:40 PST
It's good to see you're on the job! It's nice getting a rapid
response to my questions.
You asked:
>>Do you know if information from the US post office would be considered
free of copyright?<<
Uh-uh...don't touch. I'm afraid the Post Office is off-limits. Even
though it's government chartered, it's treated as a private-sector
entity, so its materials are protected by copyright.
>>Maybe some Human resources info?<<
Not sure exactly what you have in mind here, but the SBA site has a
lot of info on hiring and managing employees. In fact, if you take a
look at this page:
http://www.sba.gov/library/pubs.html
you'll not only find a publication specific to Human Resources:
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR GROWING BUSINESSES: Uncover the
characteristics of an effective personnel system and training program.
Learn how these functions come together to build employee trust and
productivity.
...but you'll also see dozens of other publications, including some on
Marketing a small business, which will bear on your next question,
which was:
>>The only other thing that I can think of would be articles about
graphics, and design<<
Beyond the marketing materials available at the SBA site, there
doesn't seem to be a great deal on this particular topic. I did find
one good public domain publication, however, which might do the trick:
http://www.talkingquality.gov/docs/section3/3_5.htm
Designing Your Report
Few sponsors of quality information projects are schooled in the art
of graphic design, but that shouldn't stop you from developing
performance reports that are crisp, clean, and easy to read. This
section reviews the following:
Elements of Good Design.
Design Guidelines for Performance Reports.
==========
At this point, you have a pretty sizable library to work with, but if
any other specific needs come to mind, just let me know, and I'll see
if I can hunt something down for you.
All the best...
pafalafa-ga
|
Clarification of Answer by
pafalafa-ga
on
02 Dec 2003 11:19 PST
Hello again,
As I noted in my original answer, most of the SBA material is copyright-free:
==========
"However, THERE?S ONE IMPORTANT CAVEAT!!! If the SBA site itself
quotes from other materials, then assume that the quoted material is
copyrighted. DO NOT USE SUCH QUOTED MATERIAL."
==========
In the link you asked about, SBA has removed any ambiguity, and made
it perfectly clear that the material is copyrighted, so do not use it
in your own site.
The bulk of the material at the SBA site is indeed copyright-free.
However, the "Library" page that you referenced seems to include a
good deal of the material from non-government sources that are
protected by copyright (the exception seems to be the "Factsheets"
listed on the Library page, most of which are SBA materials and are
hence, copyright-free).
Fortunately, the SBA site is making it very clear for you which
material is still copyright-protected, so it should be an easy matter
to sort out what is useable, and what is off-limits.
I hope this is clear. But if not, let me know. This is the most
important aspect of using material from the SBA site -- understanding
what is and is not in the public domain -- so I want to make sure you
are comfortable with the information I am providing.
Feel free to get back to me with any additional information needs you may have.
Cheers,
pafalafa-ga
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