thread copyrights

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Captain Morgan

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I remember in a non-fiction book by Cliff Stoll, he quoted entire posts from the usenet groups and wrote some of his own opinions to them.

I am wondering, if that would be permissable from regular forums today? I know some websites claim all text on their message forum is 100% copyright, etc. So in that case, would quoting any parts of this in a book be illegal? Others seem to disagree with this and say it counts as public-domain, no matter what an admin claims.
 

vixey

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Interesting question I'd like the answer to, also. I thought what I've written in my posts "belong" to me.
 

Del

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Not so far as I believe.

If there is a notice on the forum that all text becomes the property of that website then it is an agreement that must be consented to by the act of posting.

Other than that, each poster owns his own words by "fixing them" to a medium. Words must be given to the public domain either by intent or copyright expiration.

Pursuing legal action over a post might be more trouble than it is worth. You could sue but only for revenue lost or for your appropriate share of his earnings from the book based on the contribution your words made. Your legal expenses would probably exceed any restitution.

Basically, if you post it you risk it.
 

benbradley

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Not so far as I believe.

If there is a notice on the forum that all text becomes the property of that website then it is an agreement that must be consented to by the act of posting.

Other than that, each poster owns his own words by "fixing them" to a medium. Words must be given to the public domain either by intent or copyright expiration.

Pursuing legal action over a post might be more trouble than it is worth. You could sue but only for revenue lost or for your appropriate share of his earnings from the book based on the contribution your words made. Your legal expenses would probably exceed any restitution.

Basically, if you post it you risk it.
This is the "practical" answer, but the legal answer is barring other statements, anything is copyright by the person who wrote it, and you need permission of that person to include it anywhere other than the forum it was posted in.

Short answer, it wasn't permissible "then," (btw, Usenet newsgroups still exist in spite of "Endless September" and in more recent years people believing it was taken over by Google Groups) any more than "now," and if the author and especially publisher had any sense, they obtained permissions for everything they included. It may not be "worth" suing over, but someone who's text was included without permission might be highly irritated and bring a lawsuit just out of spite and "the principle of the thing," and it can get expensive for the publisher and author just to pay lawyers for advice on what to do about it.

As far as "the admin," if a message board claims copyright on everyhing a user posts, that may be the "right" the admin claims in the sign-up agreement, but I'd think a little more carefully about signing on to that forum, and about what and whether I posted to it.

IANAL, HTH, HAND, etc.
 

Toxic_Waste

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Besides the issue of taking forum posts and copying them in a book, there is also the reverse problem, of copyright-protected material or images being posted to a forum or other public-access site. If somebody went to Google Images, for example, and downloaded a pic of a famous person or even a cartoon character to use for their avatar, there is a chance they are violating a copyright law. I saw something mentioned about this, perhaps on MySpace, can't remember.

Same goes for recipes. If Paula Deen invents a recipe and somebody posts it to a forum, the copyright still belongs to her. Of course, I doubt anyone goes around enforcing these things.
 

Deleted member 42

I remember in a non-fiction book by Cliff Stoll, he quoted entire posts from the usenet groups and wrote some of his own opinions to them.

I am wondering, if that would be permissable from regular forums today? I know some websites claim all text on their message forum is 100% copyright, etc. So in that case, would quoting any parts of this in a book be illegal? Others seem to disagree with this and say it counts as public-domain, no matter what an admin claims.

Cliff got permission for every post that he quoted.

I know because I had to go do it again for the e-book version.
 

Captain Morgan

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This morning I will go to the library again and see about signing out Stoll's book to see how he referenced it.

Come to think of it, forums always post copyrighted material from books, but if you reference the book I believe this is considered OK. So, shouldn't referencing the forum, be OK as well?

I only remember one sort of big controversy a few years ago. The developer of some war-games 'Larry Harris' one night put up a big notice on his own message forum that EVERY post currently and in the future on his board was now copyright and all the sole rights were owned by HIM.

This caused a very big stir, as many of his fans had been sharing a lot of information, ideas, and new rules-gimmicks, etc. And now suddenly, without warning they are informed anything and everything to do with these were now owned by someone else.

Quite a few fans spent hours going through every single one of their posts from over the years and manually deleted each one in haste. They claimed when making those posts, there was no such notice that this sort of thing would happen.

Larry, threw up his hands in the ruckus and simply claimed his Lawyer had instructed him to do this for his own protection. He then claimed he would stand firm on this per his lawyer's advice.

Anyhow, it was rather sad, and a lot of fans never went back after that day. I personally thought it was totally unnecessary, and a few people won't by his games now because of that.
 

Deleted member 42

Come to think of it, forums always post copyrighted material from books, but if you reference the book I believe this is considered OK. So, shouldn't referencing the forum, be OK as well?

No.

Copyright law has changed since the early days of the 'net.

You now need to have specific permission from each person you quote.

In some cases you need permission from the board owner as well.
 

Captain Morgan

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Damn, the libraries here don't have Stoll's Snakeoil.

Anyhow, another look at the forum I want to borrow some messages from, has a long disclaimer how the admin has 100% ownership over EVERYTHING posted, including marketing rights of everything.

So I assume that means, I'm in luck. All I have to do is ask the admin a favour, and I'm granted reproduction rights?
 

Deleted member 42

Damn, the libraries here don't have Stoll's Snakeoil.

Anyhow, another look at the forum I want to borrow some messages from, has a long disclaimer how the admin has 100% ownership over EVERYTHING posted, including marketing rights of everything.

So I assume that means, I'm in luck. All I have to do is ask the admin a favour, and I'm granted reproduction rights?

Erp.

Were it me, I'd ask both the poster and the board owner.

You need to give them enough information but no more than you have to.

If you don't have a publisher yet, I'd wait and ask then.
 
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