Taking notes from websites against their terms and conditions

18-10-2017 | IslamWeb

Question:

Can I note information from a website and all other type sources in a notebook for learning and other purposes, or is it violation of copyright? If the websites explicitly or implicitly mention not to write anything from their websites even for personal use, does it become impermissible? Please note that I have read your other fatwas related to copyright issues, so I would be grateful if you could directly answer my question so that I can understand the ruling that is specific for my situation.

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

There is no harm on you to benefit from that information for the purpose of learning, even if the owners of the website require their permission. We have already clarified in previous fatwas that it is not required to seek permission in taking from the writings of others, but it is a condition to attribute the statements to those who made them.

Shaykh Bakr Abu Zayd said about quoting information (from websites) and the like, "It (taking from the writings of others) is a legitimate benefit about which there is no difference of opinion, and the Muslims have been known, since the beginning of publishing books until the present day, to have excerpted from other books without anyone denying their act; so if an author forbids this, then that is considered a violation of the consensus, so there is no consideration to it, even if he writes this in the title page of his book, as some do – though rarely – in our present time." [Excerpted from Fiqh An-Nawaazil]

Allah knows best.