VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 21:00:41 09/16/00 Sat
Author: ron
Subject: Re: Question on legality
In reply to: VoyForums Staff 's message, "Re: Question on legality" on 00:24:00 09/15/00 Fri

> > Do you know if it is legal to copy/paste a post at a
> > public board to another board without the permission
> > of the author?
> > Is the post considered in the public domain?
> > ron
>
> In general, creative writings may be considered
> copywritten even without an explicit copywrite notice.
> Simply providing the work available for public
> viewing does not make it public domain. Infringement
> is sometimes invalidated by the defense of "fair use",
> which is determined by the purpose and character of
> the use (of the copied material), the nature of the
> original work, amount and similarity of material
> copied, and how much commercial effect it has.
>
> Copyright law largely focusses on the commercial
> aspect, though, both in the commercial impact of the
> original work's destination market as well as the
> market of the final work, which I will discuss later.
> Copying material for commercial use is inevitably
> deemed unfair use, but may be excused with enough in
> the favor of the copier.
>
> Before I continue, I must state that neither I, nor
> Voyager Info-Systems can or will be considered your
> legal advisor, nor do I or Voyager Info-Systems
> guarantee the validity of the information I'm stating
> here. If you wish to perform an action you think may
> be copyright infringement, I recommend you research
> copyright law further or consult a legal advisor.
>
> Now, if someone posts a message on a message board, it
> is usually understood that post may be replied to,
> quoted, and even indexed in search engines; therefore,
> it would, to me, and quite possibly to courts, be
> considered irrational for the original author to
> believe their post is highly protected. However, it
> is important, then, to consider "fair use". If their
> post is an original creative work, like a poem or
> story, then duplicating the work may potentially
> affect the destination commercial market.
>
> In court cases, even copyrighted use affecting a
> completely different market, like one case I just read
> regarding a historical original work, and some of the
> factual and creative information duplicated in a
> romance novel, the usage of the copied material would
> not affect the market of the original work in any
> significant fashion.
>
> Because of all this, I think that it a poster should
> expect their post to be replied to and possibly quoted
> on the same site they posted their message on;
> however, copying it to another message board or
> message site may be raising the questionability. If
> you think the original author may be upset at your
> doing so, perhaps you shouldn't do it. Again,
> research this and make the decision yourself; I can
> find many reasons that an author would be considered
> silly, including the freely-available text to other
> sites, to search engines, to sites which process
> website text, etc.
>
> Additionally, if a poster truely is worried about
> their content, they could easily state a copyright
> notice. Also, it's worth mentioning that, apparently,
> to proceed with an actual infringement case, it
> is often necessary to register the copyright
> with the Copyright Office.
>
> I hope this helps you understand copyright law a bit
> more; I don't know if it provides anything strict for
> you to follow, and that's probably better. :)
>
> Sincerely,
> VoyForums Staff
>
>
> Bibliography:
> Metzger, Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, Phillips, Langvardt,.
> Business Law and the Regulatory Environment.
> (Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1995)
>

To Staff,
After spending several dollars at Barnes and Nobels for legal books, and enjoying a Cafe Mocha, and then searching the US Library of Congress and the US Copyright Office (oh, brother), I remembered posting the question here. (Silly me.)
Thank you for the most excellent response. No, I don't need legal help. I am trying to be as above board as possible.
I had lots of people posting messages from other sites' boards to some of mine and then discussing the posts.
We tried posting the quote and including the posters' names only to find they complained. Funny thing is those people don't even use their real names anyway. So then we tried posting the message without their names and they complained that we did not document with names.
As an educator, I teach students to use a quote and give the author's name so that they do not make the material appear to be their work.
I cannot control who copy/pastes messages from other boards to my site, without having to just delete and delete. So after one year of hard work and many hours, I actually deleted all messages at my forums and boards to comply with one poster's threats to report me to my internet provider.
Now I have all my other posters angry for deleting, which I had refused to do in the past year.
Some posters are saying that since the messages posted are simply religious discussions and not serious works prepared for sale or the such, that we are within our rights.
Your comments about the search engines was amusing to me because I have observed my sites at Voy.Com appearing on search engines...Yeah, for Voy.Com.
Your comment that it would be silly for the poster to post that which would be picked up by search engines makes perfect sense to me.
But,...it still looks like a problem. I seriously doubt that what we have been doing is a real problem and have probably just wiped out a site with over 24, 000 hits out of fear of one poster. Oh, well. What cha' gonna do?
I appreciate your prompt response and very well thought out reply. I still don't see a reasonable way to deal with the problem. Perhaps it is something that wil come up again for you.
I am currently planning to post a notice at the top of my pages advising potential posters that messages posted at the site will be archived and may be forwarded to other site. I hope this will at least make a person think twice about posting. It still won't resolve the problem about people copy/pasting messages from other sites.
I love Voy.Com and appreciate all the hard work you folks put in keeping my sites up and working properly over the last year.
Maybe this post will stand as a good recommendation for your site. I regret losing all the archived messages, but I saw no other option.

Hey! Any other of you forum owners having similar problems please let me know how you handle it.

Ron Cearley/2124, etc.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.