OK, so the fair use policy here as I understand it when linking sources is that quotes are limited to --

 

The headline

plus

Three FIRST sentences of the article

 

But rather often headlines include TWO sentences in them!

 

Even more commonly there are sub-headlines and these can be multiple sentences as well.

 

So please advise on how the fair use policy is applied in such situations.

 

Is a headline with two sentences counted as one headline or does that reduce the allowance of the first three sentences from three to two?

 

Same general question on subheadlines. Are they seen as part of the one allowed headline or does each sentence in the subheadline take off from the three sentence allowance for the beginning of the article?

 

Is it allowed to include the headline and then the first three sentences leaving off the subheadline entirely in order to better represent to the beginning of the article?

 

One comment rather than a question. It is not rare for the first three sentences to be really long and take up a massive amount of text. Such posts might LOOK like a violation, but aren't. 

Now this is my take on it, rather than an official comment, as others might view things slightly differently.

Fair use is the main background to me. I am not going to get super nit-picky if the headline has two sentences leaving effectively only one for the story. I am not going to delete the whole post if there is an extra sentence, if that extra bit makes a significant point in that piece.

The idea is that you keep it brief, and provide a link to the full story, giving people the option to read more.

It is designed to stop people plagiarizing whole articles, or boring people to death, without giving credit to the source.

If it looks fair enough, then it probably is OK. If it looks a bit long, maybe think about shortening it.

 

I really think there should be a specific policy and cut out all the ambiguity when it is possible. 

 

From an editorial POV multi sentence headlines and subheadings are a fact of life. 

 

I also think it would be massively unreasonable to post a rule saying the first three sentences are allowed and then not allow because there are long sentences.