Forum Moderators: not2easy
ds98127 said: [I]s it a copyright infringement if he copies the answers ditto[?]
And you are asking whether or not the posts to Site B will infringe on the copyright at Site A...?
Unless there is something in the usage terms at Site A that says "all posts become the property of Site A", The Author, as the author of the posts, cannot infringe on his own rights by posting copies of his own work. These copies at Site B are allowable as part of the rights conferred by his copyright.
That said, it would probably be intelligent to tweak and otherwise update his work when he posts at Site B, and include some small note at the end along the lines of "First posted at [link]". That way, nobody gets confused about authorship.
ds98127 said: If he sues the original website for copyright...
He posted his work freely. Nobody "stole" it from him, and nobody "forced" him to post.
I can think of no way in which Site A can be said to have infringed on his rights, when all it did was provide him a forum to publish his work.
ds98127 said: [If he] wants all posts related to him on the forum to be deleted will the website have to comply.
Unless there is something in the usage terms or member agreement saying that Site A will comb through all forums, delete all posts by a given user, and delete or otherwise "fix" all threads munged by the deletions, I don't see where Site A has any obligation to The Author, just because The Author has decided to start posting on Site B instead.
If The Author regrets his postings to Site A, perhaps The Author ought to be a bit more careful.
Just my opinion, of course; I could be wrong.
Eliz.
ds98127 said: I, as the original website owner had deleted his login so he can't cancel his posts anymore. Is that allowed?
Your site is just that: your site. You can do with it what you like, especially if The Author didn't pay you for any set service.
If he freely and voluntarily made posts, and he never contracted with you for hosting of any sort (and you never contracted to archive his content in perpetuity), then I don't see where he has any grounds for complaint.
But you might want to talk with a lawyer, if this seems headed for trouble.
Eliz.
When he posted it to your site, there is an "implied license" for you to continue to distribute the work in the same manner as when it was posted. Search on ["implied license" copyright] for more info.
I you want some legal terms to look up, try "estoppel" and "laches".
Estoppel, in this case, would mean that you cannot hold someone else accountable for your own actions. If you post something on a website, it is not within your rights to sue someone else because of YOUR action of posting.
Laches means that if they delayed in pursuing the claim, and that delay is going to lead to additional loss on your part, that you have a good defense. In this case, removing their messages from the threads would damage the continuity of the threads, especially if someone else has replied to the comments.
Of course they can still sue you, it just means that you have a very good chance of winning.
Lots of people threaten lawsuits, few file. If you consider the posts to be valuable enough, pay a lawyer to write him a letter explaining copyright law. Most people shut up with the threats of a lawsuit when they realize that you have a lawyer.
Unless there is something in the usage terms at Site A that says "all posts become the property of Site A", The Author, as the author of the posts, cannot infringe on his own rights by posting copies of his own work. These copies at Site B are allowable as part of the rights conferred by his copyright.
Just to clarify whether I'm understanding this correctly: The original thread question, "Can an author copy his posts from a forum?" has already been answered with a clear-cut "yes," right? And the question is now whether, if the author demands that his posts be removed from Site A, the forum owner has an obligation to do so? Do the TOS say anything about that, or about what kind of license/permission the poster grants the forum owner? Or when you say there was no rights agreement, does that mean the TOS are silent on the matter?
I have no idea how a court would use the following, but besides the things already mentioned, the U.S. copyright office does say something about collections/compilations. While an author retains copyright to his or her individual work, the person who put the compilation together owns the copyright to the compilation. I suppose the question would be whether a forum owner can be said to have "compiled" or "collected" the forum.
I suppose the question would be whether a forum owner can be said to have "compiled" or "collected" the forum.
I don't think that would come into play at all, since the person is not copying the compilation, but only their own posts.
Suppose Joe publishes and anthology of poetry, including a poem by Susan. Becky copies Susan's poem, and only Susan's poem out of the anthology. The only one with a right to sue for copyright infrinment is Susan, not Joe.
If someone copies a thread from the forum, the forum owner could sue, but not for copying a single post, or several posts that are not in the same order as on the site.
This guy gave of his time effort and knowledge to give good answers to your members, all in good faith.
He willing contributed to help make your forum a place of interest, you now want to screw him out of making some cash.
Regardless of the points of law, I believe what you are doing is dispicable.
I think you should take your head out of your own ass apologise to your member and offer all support in his endevours, and encourage him to remain a member of your forum.
He willing contributed to help make your forum a place of interest, you now want to screw him out of making some cash.
And the copyright holder wants to screw up discussions he freely participated in, just to make some cash without making any additional effort.
He IS allowed to copy it onto his own site, and certainly has the ability to rewrite it in a way that will avoid duplicate content issues. He can make his cash.
What he is trying to do is going to screw up someone else, just because they are a potential competitor. That is wrong.
What about all those other people that contributed to that thread with the assumption that it would stay intact? He may have been the most knowledgable participant, but he is not necessarily the only one that put time and thought into that thread.
This is like someone releasing software under the GPL, then after a bunch of other people contributed patches, saying that it is no longer open source. You can use your patches, but you can't use the the base software which makes the patches useless.
You might want to rethink who exactly is doing the screwing here.
Lobo said: This guy gave of his time effort and knowledge to give good answers to your members, all in good faith.
Lobo said: He willing[sic] contributed....
Lobo said: [Y]ou now want to screw him out of making some cash.
Lobo said: I think you should...offer all support in his endevours...
Obviously it is a little over your head... site A being the vehicle of your obsession.
Let me play it your geeky way for a little while...
Ultimately Site A belongs to person A so can do what ever he wants to do with person B on site A..
Legally .. person A although may refuse to allow person B in to site A , person B can legally claim rights over his own contribution.
Therefore all that person A can do is remove the content from site A so that no one can view it...
Beyond that .. although the internet is full of sharks, there is no need to be one..
To refuse to let Person B take a copy of his contribution to Site A .. shows complete disrespect, disregard and utter contempt for the members of the forum community.
Then to come here where people freely give good professional advice for the sake of the community is a damn cheek..
It is everything disgusting in an ignorant spiteful mentality, it is abusing the fair mindedness of the users who came to his forum, it is unfair, ill-thought out and ultimately bad business...
Because that is all that is still being discussed. You seem to have misread every post since the second one if that is not the case.
I think you better review your site A/B and person A/B logic.
Start by defining which is which, because they don't seem to match up with anything in stapel's post, nor do they even make any sense.
To refuse to let Person B take a copy of his contribution to Site A
If by this you mean that the owner of the original site trying to stop the author from posting his work on another site (in this case it should be site B) then not only does the owner of the original site not have a moral right to block it, everyone is in agreement that he does not have a legal right to block it. If you think anyone of us has said otherwise, you misread.
The ONLY thing still being discussed is whether there is a legal or moral obligation for the site owner to delete the original posts to the original site at the request of the author.
So, are you suggesting that the owner of the origninal site should delete the posts?
Whether you have the legal right to stop him copying them to a new forum or not, stopping him would not be a nice thing to do and you shouldn't do it.
You have cancelled his account on your forum and made it clear he is not welcome at your forum in so doing. If your fear was that he would delete old posts you could have locked all posts over a week old. It was not nice to delete his account and it would be nice to apologise for being hot-headed.
It would not be nice for him to demand that you remove all his posts from your site. You should offer to remove his name from the posts.
I suggest that you propose the following to him:-
- All his old posts will have a new 'signature' link to the new forum, explaining he is a Guest Expert from Site B.
- He will, in exchange for that, grant you written permission to display all such posts in perpetuity.
- He will also agree to frequent your forum again as a gesture of good faith.
Please read the above thread in detail. The issue is that the author wishes to delete all his posts from site A, so he can publish them for profit on site B. The owner of site A is understandably upset that the deletion of posts from threads in his forum will destroy the value of many threads on his forum -- threads to which many people contributed in addition to the problematic author.
This thread serves as a warning to all forum owners to publish clear Terms of Service that state that contributing material to the forum grants an irrevocable non-exclusive license to that forum to use the contributed material in perpetuity. In other words, once it's posted, the forum can use it forever, but the posted material may also be posted or used elsewhere, as is the author's natural right under copyright law.
It's also a good idea to limit the time period that posts can be edited. Although this should be done for several reasons, one of them is that it stops people deleting posts and ruining threads.
Many large forums that have been around for awhile have comprehensive Terms of Service and functional features built-in to prevent such problems. In-depth review of those Terms and features may prove worthwhile.
Jim
Yet as there has been no contract or agreement between either of you, then the status quo prevails..
His attempts to get payment from you is all bluster, if he is seeking money for some information he put on a forum then he certainly has no cash to sue anybody.
Even given that, it wouldn't stand up.
Thank him for his contribution, accept him back as a member of the forum, don't allow him to edit or delete any post and make it clear you will be deleting anything that is already present.
I think you will find a firm but friendly email is all that it will take.
Lobo said: Thank him for his contribution, accept him back as a member of the forum....
The Author doesn't want to be a member of the forum at Site A. He is instead threatening to sue and shut down Site A, unless Site A is run according to how he and Site B want Site A to be run. I can't think why Site A should "thank him" for this?
Lobo said: ...accept him back as a member of the forum, don't allow him to edit or delete any post....
Lobo said: ...and make it clear you will be deleting anything that is already present.
vincevincevince said: Whether you have the legal right to stop him copying them to a new forum or not....
vincevincevince said: You have cancelled his account on your forum....
vincevincevince said: All his old posts will have a...link to...Site B.
vincevincevince said: He will...grant...permission to display all such posts in perpetuity.
vincevincevince said: He will also agree to frequent your forum....
I had no problem with the author copying his posts but he wants to sue me to delete those posts from my site as well. This means i must also delete the queries else the thread won't make sense......
......Sorry but i don't understand why people think i am the one extracting the pound of flesh...
a-)Now is it a copyright infringement if he copies the answers ditto
b-)If he sues the original website for copyright and wants all posts related to him on the forum to be deleted will the website have to comply.
I do agree that the first question was answered quite a ways back, but it does seem to me as if it was asked. But I readily admit to being confused...?
I say ignore the troll on your site. It's not like anyone was ever prevented from packaging free information available online and selling it later at a profit on a another venue. In fact it happens everyday.
Sorry I meant to say do not delete... just to make things more confusing..
Personally i'd go for Harry's option and ignore the troll ...
Most forums set a very limited edit window. I recall one forum that failed to do that, and an upset member methodically deleted all his posts. This ruined many threads that would have been long term assets for the forum. (Indeed, I was researching a particular technical topic and found the threads unusable as that member had made some important contributions.)
I'll join the chorus:
- set a tight edit window.
- have clear TOS that gives you perpetual rights to use user-contributed content (you and your attorney can decide how aggressive to get).
- warn members to think before they post, noting the limited edit time; this is mainly to hold down deletion requests from members who posted too much info.
This annoying user is free to republish his content elsewhere, but I would tend to resist any demands for removal of his content unless your attorney advises you otherwise.
