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Topic: Who owns the content from forum posts? (Read 13765 times) |
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dealuser
Newbie

Posts: 1
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Who owns the content from forum posts?
« on: Aug 12th, 2004, 8:06am » |
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I am interested in starting a forum site about a specific topic. I was interested in setting up automation to take posts from other forums to populate my own forum. In the process of taking the posts, I would programatically take out all references to the original forum. Is this illegal? Am I taking any intellectual property or copywright or trademark info by doing this? A follow-up question would be whether it matters if the forum post content is only available by signing in to the other site? Thank you for any advice on this matter.
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Isaac
Senior Member
   
Posts: 3472
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Re: Who owns the content from forum posts?
« Reply #1 on: Aug 13th, 2004, 8:06pm » |
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By default, authors own the copyright in their own creative writings. There is probably some implied license involved when you publicly post material in a forum, but I would not expect that license to extend to publishing the material outside of the forum. Signing up may make a difference because participants may have agreed to something other than the default. Without seeing the agreement, it would be speculative to say what difference it would make, but I would expect that it would not allow someone other than the forum holder to make off with forum contents.
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Isaac
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JimIvey
Moderator Senior Member
    
Posts: 2584
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Re: Who owns the content from forum posts?
« Reply #2 on: Aug 15th, 2004, 12:08pm » |
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I think an argument can be made that the forum owner has rights in the compilation -- like that famous telephone book case that a true copyright attorney would know of the top of their head (hint: I'm not one of those). You might be able to get by with a "fair use" defense if you quote only small portions of each post and include a link to the original post in the other forum. Regards.
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-- James D. Ivey Law Offices of James D. Ivey http://www.iveylaw.com
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Isaac
Senior Member
   
Posts: 3472
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Re: Who owns the content from forum posts?
« Reply #3 on: Aug 15th, 2004, 12:45pm » |
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Feist v. Rural Telephone. I'm not sure the forum holder has done anything creative if he's simply displayed every post made on a given subject. If there is nothing creative in the selection or arrangement there is no compilation copyright.
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Isaac
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JimIvey
Moderator Senior Member
    
Posts: 2584
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Re: Who owns the content from forum posts?
« Reply #4 on: Aug 16th, 2004, 11:03am » |
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Not to find fault with your analysis, but to acknowledge the value added and contribution of IntelPropLaw WebMaster -- I think the particular organization of topics might be sufficient for some protection. I suspect the GUI widgets and miscellany that accompany the raw substantive content of the posts are provided by a packaged BB utility -- probably not good copyright candidates. Anyway, absent something interesting in the "Terms of Use" (http://www.intelproplaw.com/Forum/Terms.shtml) and ignoring any clever or interesting categorization and organization, Mr. Clark is right. Regards.
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-- James D. Ivey Law Offices of James D. Ivey http://www.iveylaw.com
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