What is the perfect business for a market researcher?

Small business articles Free Use with or with out credit

• I am looking for a detailed series of articles, at least 15 to 20. The articles should be about general business issues that pertian to us based businesses. The articles must be able to be used on our web site, legally. We can give permission to the author, or we can take permission for them, what ever works for the source. If you as the researcher are intrested in writing articles for me, that would be acceptable. This is an example of a site that uses content similar to what I am asking for: http://www.officedepot.com/renderStaticPage.do?context=/content&file=/BusinessTools/SBH/default.jsp http://www.officedepot.com/businesscenter.do I would ideally like to see 50+ good articles that I can legally use on our web site. It is very very important that it is legal for us to use these articles. It would be ideal if we can take credit for the articles legally. We do not necessarly need to have exclusive use of the articles, but I dont want everyone to have read them already. Articles related to small / medium development / growth / marketing / sales are best, however all business articles are welcome. A very genorouse tip will be provided for a complete posting here of the articles that I am requesting. Please also make sure the articles are not teriable dated. An article about how to market products or services for industries that no longer exgist are useless. I perfer articles that are general or market direction, not product directed. i.e. I do not want articles about how to run a tire shop, however, articles about how to run a sucessful retail business would be excellent.

• Answer:

  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.