Credit

Just wondering is it necessary to credit websites used in order to publish a work. If so where?

Thanks

 

What do you mean? Like if you do research for a historical novel?

 

Yeah, a bit more information is needed.

 

I research alot of stuff on the web. But I get so much information from all over, that I can't credit a websight.

If you feel like one sight helped you in the work, then credit it.

If I credited websights:
1 credit for random name generator
1 credit for random town generator(the background of the town, not the main stuff)
1 credit for technical background information.(like in one book I mention tanning leather)
credits for pictures of scenes that I have used.

It could take forever to credit every piece I use in a book.

Background for me, is reviewing the mythological animals/beasts of all that have wrote about it, and then designing the being in my world. So I could not credit a websight.

 

If you are using photographs, copy and paste items, verbatim reports etc., you would have to get permission from the site owner to use them.
If you are talking about the information gained from researching a subject on a site, facts are not copyright protected.

If you look through a site's terms and conditions they will tell you what is allowable.

If you're not sure you can contact the site.

I wanted to use a photograph from Spartacus, emailed the site and obtained permission to use it.

 

you must give us more info, if you want a valid answer to your question...

 

Fiction: No
Non-fiction: Most likely.

 

My apologies, think I wrote it in haste, I meant if I say wanted to write about Vincent Van Gogh(oops!) in a fiction sense. Would I need to credit all of the sources I got any information on him from.

And then is that necessary if I say(not that I have any plans for this at all ) get this story published? Hope that is more clear.

 

If you are writing a fictional story, you do not need to cite your sources.

 

Thank you much obliged.

 

you don't for most non-fiction, either... doing 'research' to learn about your subject isn't the same as using actual bits of others' work within your own, which is when you must cite the source...

just take a look at magazine articles and essays and you'll see the writers couldn't possibly have known everything they wrote in them without 'studying up on' the subjects, yet they don't bore the reader with an endless list of every single place where they found bits of info, do they?

same goes for a lot of non-fiction books... however there are some types of books in which an appendix of info sources will be included, such as scholarly or historical works, etc....

the difference lies mainly in whether you paraphrase what you learned, or quote parts of others' texts...

you should study up on the ins and outs of copyright, as in what you can and can't do, here:
www.copyright.gov

 

Thanks although copyright is a beast of its own kind.

 

but knowing the nature of this beast is a vital part of the 'job' of being a writer...