I really liked your article on _____. Can I republish it on my website /
blog / newsletter?
No.
However if you’re willing to read further and follow a few guidelines, the
answer might well be “Yes” under certain conditions.
Become a Patron of Ask Leo! and go ad-free!
Copying entire articles without express permission beforehand is a violation
of the Ask Leo! terms of service. It’s actually a
violation of copyright and as a result, illegal. In a more practical sense,
under the terms of the DMCA you could actually lose your web hosting should the
violation be reported to your ISP or web host.
But there are alternatives.
First, as specified in those terms, you are free to republish the content of
my RSS feeds, as long as you take care to ensure that the links are “live” and
click-able.
If you’re not up on RSS, what that means is that you can freely republish
any article up to the first “bullet” (•) that appears after the
first question and introduction. You may not republish the rest of the
article past that point, but rather you can link to it on ask-leo.com,
typically in the form of a “Continue reading…” link.
I realize that doesn’t meet the desire to republish full articles. The issue is
simply that visitors to Ask Leo! reading the articles on Ask Leo! is what pays the bills.
However…
I have set up a site – Articles by Leo – containing a select set of articles that
can be republished in their entirety. They’re specifically crafted and
re-edited for republication, with some very simple terms (basically you need to credit Ask Leo!).
All for free.
I’m slowly adding more as time permits. If there’s a particular article on
Ask Leo! that you would like to republish but is not available via
articlesbyleo.com, just drop me a line and I’ll see if it makes sense to put a
version there.