Members right to remove their own posts

[mark_roach]

I run a forum and have just had a member of my forum request that I remove all of his posts. I am loathed to do this because it would ruin a number of threads, however he claims that he has legal right to have his posts removed.

I note that Brett has added the following to the forum TOS here:

"When a message is placed in any forum system, you are granting a soft license to the site to use it"

Is Brett just stating a fact that applies to all forums for the avoidance of doubt, or without such a statement is the member of my site correct?

Mark

[LifeinAsia]

Rather than completely removing each message, change the displayed text to something like "Removed by Original Poster" or "Message Deleted."

Refer to the Terms of Serivce on your site (you DO have a ToS that users must agree to before they can post, don't you?)- exactly what do you specify?

[rogerd]

If your Terms of Service don't define ownership and rights to the posts, I'm not sure where the legality lies. Certainly, even if the poster retains copyright to his posts, there's an implied right for you to use the posts as long as your site is up. But, I'm not a lawyer and in the absence of clear terms things can get messy.

As a forum operator, I'd tend to refuse this kind of request. On my forums, I've occasionally edited or deleted an old post or two at the request of a member ("I posted in your forum two years ago, and now it's #1 in Google for my name!"). I generally refuse to mass delete, as it ruins the integrity of threads and may make them hard to understand or even useless.

If your TOS isn't clear, I'd fix that ASAP to prevent future disputes.