Who has Copyrights of posts, author or vB owner?

[Joe Gronlund]

yaa its a paradox really,, the author of the post technically owns the content of the post. But the server owner, owns the content on the server..

When it all comes down to it, Server/vB owner would be most correct..

could argue for hours about this topic though..

[Guest]

And if you live outside the US, but your servers are in the US, you are bound by the DMCA.

Not to intrude on this thread,

Dose this work the other way around?, I live in the US, if I had a server in canada would I also be bound by the DMCA (or any other law that applys to sites hosted in the US)?

The reason I ask is that it is my understanding that I must have COPPA turned on because my server is in the US, Ive always turned it off anyway because the community was really just for a group of friends. Im planning on doing a bigger project soon and getting a new server and would like to keep COPPA off but it will (hopefully) be alot bigger then my last community.

[okrogius]

Just add a line to your terms (which convinently someone has to agree to in order to register) saying that you must be 13 or over to register. Makes everything simple and convinient.

[HSeldon]

For the most part, this is correct. The one exception is...You're copyright does not overrule theirs. They still have the rights to the material, and you are responsible for all actions on your board. If someone posted Child Porn on your board, and you knew about it but failed to remove it, you're legally responsible for it. Even if you didn't know about it, there's a good chance that you will still be held responsible for it.

But yes... generally speaking, all posts on your board belong to you.

Hi,

This is decisive, at least in Germany. I read about some case where this was the exact trigger. Once you know about something illegal, you are responsible. Same would go if somebody brought it to your attention. As long as neither happens, there was a German court decision that you cannot be held to know all the content present on your site at all times. Once responsible, copyright doesnt matter, you are displaying it and succeptible to whatever laws apply to that content.

[soz for diggin´ this zombie up .. just stumbled across it]

[Erwin]

People are confusing copyright of the text in posts, and ownership of the actual posts.

I buy a book, I own the book, but I don't own the copyright of the text in the book.

Copyright of what you write will always belong to you if you don't knowingly assign it to another person with your informed consent. A forum owner however has legal liability over the contents of his forum - this usually means ownership of the posts - but not necessarily the copyright - different issues - you can delete the posts in your forum for example as you own them, but you can't copy a poster's post and claim it as your own - the more control the forum owner has over the posts the higher the responsibility. Case law and legislation in the US, UK and Australia support this. This is a whole area of law itself - I did a Master's subject in it - it's obviously more complicated than what I've posted, but overall, that's the principle.

Disclaimer: The above is not to be taken as legal advice and is not being offered as such. The author takes no responsibility for any action, liabilities or loss that occurs from anyone who uses the contents of this post for any purpose.

[JulieB]

copywrite laws for posting articles

Sorry for bumping this old thread - but I didn't see any other threads on the topic.

Does anyone know the copywrite laws for posting news articles in forums? Is it ok to copy and paste the whole news article, as long as you provide the link where it came from?

Thank you.

[Joe Gronlund]

Sorry for bumping this old thread - but I didn't see any other threads on the topic.

Does anyone know the copywrite laws for posting news articles in forums? Is it ok to copy and paste the whole news article, as long as you provide the link where it came from?

Thank you.

As long as you post the source with the article, you can post the article..

[Splinted]

In my opinion, you could also write a TOS before they enter the forum which covers any information posted on your forum even before you have written the TOS. For example,

"By using this forum you hereby acknowledge and agree to all the following agreements. By using this forum, you grant site own permission to own rights to your publishing, and posting (meaning, by using this forum and submitting any information, you hereby give site owner all rights of your submission and content). By accepting this agreement, you agree all previous submissions made by oneself are owned by site owner."

I'm not going to pretend I'm a lawyer or anything, but sweetning that up a bit and make it more "flawless" it seems it should cover you. But to make sure they agree, send a notice to all user's before entering the forum as well as a notice of skipping the TOS will not exclude from accepting. Basically, telling them that by using the forum, they give you the ownership of the post..Just my idea anyways..

[JulieB]

In my opinion, you could also write a TOS before they enter the forum which covers any information posted on your forum even before you have written the TOS. For example,

"By using this forum you hereby acknowledge and agree to all the following agreements. By using this forum, you grant site own permission to own rights to your publishing, and posting (meaning, by using this forum and submitting any information, you hereby give site owner all rights of your submission and content). By accepting this agreement, you agree all previous submissions made by oneself are owned by site owner."

I'm not going to pretend I'm a lawyer or anything, but sweetning that up a bit and make it more "flawless" it seems it should cover you. But to make sure they agree, send a notice to all user's before entering the forum as well as a notice of skipping the TOS will not exclude from accepting. Basically, telling them that by using the forum, they give you the ownership of the post..Just my idea anyways..

Thank you for the feedback.

I'm not sure if that would work in our situation.

If we post CNN, or MSNBC, etc...any news-based articles that we get from THEIR site.....We post it in it's entirety - BUT we always include the link to the article. Would that change the language of any type of disclaimer you're suggesting?

I'm wondering if the disclaimer needs to be targeted moreso to the news sources whose info we're posting.....not to the users who are logging on and posting.

Someone on another forum swears that you're not allowed to post entire articles, only pieces of them.......and I haven't found any evidence to back this up.

[Colin F]

I'm not sure how it is legally, but personally I feel that it's polite to only post part of an article, and if someone wants to read the entire thing, like back with a [Read on...] link or similiar.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Sorry for bumping this old thread - but I didn't see any other threads on the topic.

Does anyone know the copywrite laws for posting news articles in forums? Is it ok to copy and paste the whole news article, as long as you provide the link where it came from?

Thank you.

I think this would depend on the following:
- Law of country under which the original article was made (mostly the country where the originating server is located or the company that provided the article is located)
- TOS of the originating site. Does the site allow duplicating of their articles.
- Law of country where the server is located where the article is duplicated.

[JulieB]

I think this would depend on the following:
- Law of country under which the original article was made (mostly the country where the originating server is located or the company that provided the article is located)
- TOS of the originating site. Does the site allow duplicating of their articles.
- Law of country where the server is located where the article is duplicated.

Thank you all for your feedback....Interesting.

I'm thinking maybe I should be contacting the main sites we use, and go from there.