Legal issues with news site

[Tanthalas]

Hey all,

Thinking of setting up a feed site that collates news from other sources on a particular subject and links to them.  Users would be able to comment on/discuss an article, and there may be several other static pages with background on the subject. What sort of legal issues would I need to consider?

Obviously, I'd need a statement saying that the news sites aren't affiliated with my site, that opinions of users/news sites are not the opinions of other, etc.  Would I be allowed to include a summary of the article - perhaps the first paragraph? What sort of stuff do I need to consider? Copyright law is not my strong point, so any help is appreciated.

Cheers.

[rutty]

http://www.newsvine.com is a good place to start to see what can and can't be done

[sickpuppy]

I seem to remember google getting into hot water some time ago from a Belgian newspaper they were "aggregating" news from.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/feb/13/copyright.news

[Tanthalas]

http://www.newsvine.com is a good place to start to see what can and can't be done

Cheers Mr Rutt, that's fairly close to what I was thinking of, only mine would be a bit more simplistic than that.

Matt - weren't they nicking large chunks/full texts of articles, rather than a summary/small section?

[Tanthalas]

Thought: would you be allowed to cache articles in case they disappeared off the linked-to website?  Cache wouldn't be displayed unless the link was dead.  Would be useful in case articles were later deleted, but there are painfully obvious legal issues with that.  How do Google get away with it - because it's necessary for their service?