Sharing restricted links

Yesterday I wrote about only linking to public material, but what happens if you find a great resource and can’t easily share it?

Here are some ideas on how you may be able to access that information to share it with others:

• simply ask the owner of the article/site if you can copy it then add it to your newsletter or as a guest blog post
• pick out key points from the article and summarise them in a blog post or across multiple tweets – it is courteous if you mention the inspiring source rather than just copy their ideas
• make the link public but include mention of the restrictions (eg ‘only paid members can view’)
• ask if a public-access link is available somewhere, or if one could be created 

Depending on the structure and intent of the person restricting access to the article, these techniques may be approved and therefore you can share that great information. If not, maybe just tell people that it exists and how they could access it.

Have you ever tried finding a legitimate way of sharing restrictied information?