Copyright?

[Dave2002]

First, let me say that I'm not particularly bothered about what follows. My query is out of academic interest.

I'm just wondering what the copyright situation is regarding posts on this forum. My understanding is that under UK and European law any post is the copyright of the original writer. However, the T&Cs of a forum (including this one) would allow the forum owners/administrators publishing rights. Possibly some forums would require joint ownership rights. Copying previous posts or fragments of previous posts is common practice, and is presumably not considered copyright infringement because it is implicit that commenting on previous posts is part of the way forums work, though it might be an infringement if the original author is not acknowldeged.

Has anyone round here thought of this? US writers might have to put a copyright symbol on their posts.

Just in case anyone chooses to write their next best-selling novel on the for3 forum, or provide the answer to life, the universe and everything!

[pastoralguy]

...or provide the answer to life, the universe and everything!

Is the answer not 42?

[french frank]

However, the T&Cs of a forum (including this one) would allow the forum owners/administrators publishing rights.

In the case of this forum, the clause was written in when a departing (of his own accord) member claimed copyright of everything he'd written and demanded it be removed. There are probably some short cuts but basically it would have to be done manually and as the member had over 2,000 posts it would have been time-consuming and created havoc with discussions. Every thread started by that individual would disappear because that's what happens when an OP is deleted.

'Publish' in our case simply means 'publish on the forum' and doesn't allow anyone to demand that their posts be removed. Members can only 'soft delete' so if they tried to delete everything it could be restored - but that would only be in exceptional cases such as the one described.

But that only addresses the point as regards our T&Cs.

[MrGongGong]

It's the internet
you have no rights, no ownership
that's the deal I guess

(in reality I mean)

[umslopogaas]

No, no rights and no ownership: I guess that's an accurate assessment. But what I do hope to have is a record of posting. I never thought of this before, but I have always trusted that when I posted a bit of text, there was a record held by those who displayed the posting, and it had a date. It would be reassuring to know that was true. I dont hope to make millions out of my thoughts, on or off line, but it would be reassuring to know that at least there was a system to validate that I wrote a certain piece of text and I got there first with it.

Mr GG, I'm not quite sure the above is coherent, but I offer it anyway and I'm sure you'll correct me if it isnt.

[pastoralguy]

No, no rights and no ownership: I guess that's an accurate assessment. But what I do hope to have is a record of posting. I never thought of this before, but I have always trusted that when I posted a bit of text, there was a record held by those who displayed the posting, and it had a date. It would be reassuring to know that was true. I dont hope to make millions out of my thoughts, on or off line, but it would be reassuring to know that at least there was a system to validate that I wrote a certain piece of text and I got there first with it.

Mr GG, I'm not quite sure the above is coherent, but I offer it anyway and I'm sure you'll correct me if it isnt.

Oddly enough, I've just written glowing a review on Amazon for a new recording that came out recently. It looked at some of my old reviews and found one that I wrote exactly 10 years ago! Where did those 10 years go?! I wonder how long they will survive before they are deleted.

[MrGongGong]

I wonder how long they will survive before they are deleted.

It's there for ever

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delete-Virtue-Forgetting-Digital-Paper/dp/0691150362

[Gordon]

Having worked with patents and copyright issues in the past so the following may be of some help:

When you write a post you are "creatiing" a work and have a right to protect the fact that it was you that created it. That is your only right as the author - to be known as the work's creator.

If you arrange to publish that work - and you automatically do so on a forum such as this one - the publisher also acquires rights of protection of that publication. You may publish yourself of course and it may be an exclusive or non-exclusive publication IOW you may publish in more than one place. In law publisher rights have time limits so it is wise to date all creative works but the author always has the right of creator. There is a difference between Publishing rights [a little P in a circle] and Copyright [a little C in a circle]. The first protects the publisher's rights of ownership and the second protects copying of the published work.

If this publication arrangement is a commercial one the publisher may have paid you a fee to do so and so he acquires exloitation rights from you and so has a claim on the income from sales of the work. You get a royalty from him as part of the deal. The publisher owns the publication not the author - EMI owns [unless they sell them on which they may do] the publishing rights to the Beatles recordings even though the band created the music, and book authors have a statement in their published work to the effect that they have asserted their rights to be known as the author, but that is their only right once they have signed the publishing deal.

This forum's T&C statement implicitly gains these publishing rights as soon as anyone signs up and then proceeds to post. Unless it is otherwise made explicit, it is not clear in the copyright acts what happens to a published work if the author wishes to withdraw it. In a commercial agreement this would be explicit as would other aspects of the deal. So here, the poster who demands a removal of his "work" has no explicit rights to that demand because it is not explicit in the T&Cs and so it remains at the discretion of the publisher. All that author can do is publish another statement refuting a previous one that he no longer wishes to support. Am I right in assuming that any poster here can delete their own posts anyway?

Regarding clipping/quoting others' posts, this is accepted in the copyright acts as "fair use" and, especially in academic or technical circles, it is essential that quotation be allowed in order to facilitate academic debate. Usually the etiquette is to acknowledge the quotation source reference - acknowledging the right of the author to be known and identified [even though he may use a pseudonym and so confuse his "legal" identity!!!]. In some cases it may be appropriate to get prior permission from the author and/or publisher, as appropriate, particularly if the source publication is sold for money and where royalties may be involved so that one may have to pay to make a quotation. In my experience such permission has always been given for free.

On a forum like this one it would be cumbersome to say the least to do all that and so the tacit assumption is that all posters get benefit from not asserting author rights.

[Boilk]

It's there for ever

... or at least until the sun expands and engulfs the inner planets (and assuming that by then the entire internet archive hasn't already been transmitted extraterrestrially).

[MrGongGong]

I caught the end of Law In Action on R4 today
and next week it's going include an item on who owns things you post on the net etc

Might be worth a listen (Gin O'clock here )

[pastoralguy]

Having worked with patents and copyright issues in the past so the following may be of some help:

When you write a post you are "creatiing" a work and have a right to protect the fact that it was you that created it. That is your only right as the author - to be known as the work's creator.

If you arrange to publish that work - and you automatically do so on a forum such as this one - the publisher also acquires rights of protection of that publication. You may publish yourself of course and it may be an exclusive or non-exclusive publication IOW you may publish in more than one place. In law publisher rights have time limits so it is wise to date all creative works but the author always has the right of creator. There is a difference between Publishing rights [a little P in a circle] and Copyright [a little C in a circle]. The first protects the publisher's rights of ownership aknd the second protects copying of the published work.

If this publication arrangement is a commercial one the publisher may have paid you a fee to do so and so he acquires exloitation rights from you and so has a claim on the income from sales of the work. You get a royalty from him as part of the deal. The publisher owns the publication not the author - EMI owns [unless they sell them on which they may do] the publishing rights to the Beatles recordings even though the band created the music, and book authors have a statement in their published work to the effect that they have asserted their rights to be known as the author, but that is their only right once they have signed the publishing deal.

This forum's T&C statement implicitly gains these publishing rights as soon as anyone signs up and then proceeds to post. Unless it is otherwise made explicit, it is not clear in the copyright acts what happens to a published work if the author wishes to withdraw it. In a commercial agreement this would be explicit as would other aspects of the deal. So here, the poster who demands a removal of his "work" has no explicit rights to that demand because it is not explicit in the T&Cs and so it remains at the discretion of the publisher. All that author can do is publish another statement refuting a previous one that he no longer wishes to support. Am I right in assuming that any poster here can delete their own posts anyway?

Regarding clipping/quoting others' posts, this is accepted in the copyright acts as "fair use" and, especially in academic or technical circles, it is essential that quotation be allowed in order to facilitate academic debate. Usually the etiquette is to acknowledge the quotation source reference - acknowledging the right of the author to be known and identified [even though he may use a pseudonym and so confuse his "legal" identity!!!]. In some cases it may be appropriate to get prior permission from the author and/or publisher, as appropriate, particularly if the source publication is sold for money and where royalties may be involved so that one may have to pay to make a quotation. In my experience such permission has always been given for free.

On a forum like this one it would be cumbersome to say the least to do all that and so the tacit assumption is that all posters get benefit from not asserting author rights.

Very interesting indeed. Thank you.