If you are requesting permission to quote/duplicate texts:
  • If you only want to quote a few sentences, you are more than welcome. Just mention the source in parentheses, as usual.
  • If you want to duplicate one of my texts, it's a strange request:
    • The text may change in the future (in fact, on my website texts change on a daily basis). Why would you want to duplicate a text that will rapidly become obsolete? I think it's wiser to just put a link to someone else's text rather than duplicate the text as it is on a given day. I think that was the whole point of the world-wide web...
    • If you credit me with the text that you are copying, it means that any error that i correct on my original will still appear on yours and your readers will think that i am an idiot. If you don't credit me with the text that you are copying, your readers might think that i copied from you (the Web does not have a time stamp). So, either way, you put me in a lose-lose situation.
    • Google penalizes duplicate texts. It penalizes both texts. Anybody who gives you permission to duplicate their texts may not be aware that it will probably reduce their page ranking.
    • Once you have published my text, i do not "own" the exclusive on that text anymore. For example, if i want to publish that text in a book, the publisher requires the exclusive rights.
    I think it is wiser and more effective to simply link to the original webpage rather than duplicate its text on your webpage. At least that's what i have always done since the Web was born: whenever i want my readers to read someone else's text, i simply link to it.
Thanks for your interest, piero