Just wanted to chip into the debate re copyright and the Daily Fails extensive use of the criticism and review exception.
Section 30 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act (CDPA) permits the use of a work for the purpose of criticism, review, quotation and news reporting, if it is accompanied by sufficient acknowledgement, and provided that the work has been made available to the public. (Which anything published on Mumsnet obviously is).
There is limited case law on what constitutes criticism and review but in order for the exception to apply the copying of the work must be truly connected with review and criticism and not purely for illustrative or enhancement purposes. The use of a work must be fair, so must not duly impinge upon the copyright owner's rights of exploitation. The extent of quotation is no more than required for the specific purpose for which it is used.
The law does not give specific guidelines on what constitutes ‘fair dealing’; but, in relation to this exception, it may be useful to take into account the following:
The length and importance of quotation(s)
The amount quoted in relation to the commentary
The extent to which the work competes with or rivals the work quoted
The extent to which the use of commercial rather than academic
So, the Fail use of quotation in this case may be open to challenge on the basis that the amount quoted is is significantly larger than the accompanying 'commentary'. Also, the extent to which the Fail article could be said to rival the original MN thread. E.g. could reading the Fail article be an alternative to reading the source text, I.e the MN thread. This might form the basis for a challenge, as it could be taking traffic (and therefore revenue) away from MN and towards the Daily Fail.
So there might be grounds for MNHQ to consider action against the Fail, but its a fairly untested area of law, so v risky. There could be enough to justify getting a legal opinion from a copyright specialist, though.