5 replies to this topic

[Barbra]

Hello everyone,

An interesting question has come up for me. When someone owns a website that has a discussion forum and/or a gallery where members can make postings or upload images, who “owns” that content?

Can the owner of the site, for example, take the content and repurpose it? If so, under what conditions?

I guess the same question would apply to blogs. If someone makes a comment on your blog, who has rights involving those words?

Thank you for your insights,

barbra

[Scottie]

A lot of it depends on the owner of the forum or blog- they should state their terms clearly.

I've seen some forum owners claim absolute ownership of everything posted there, but when it boils right down to it, most community sites operate under a mutual ownership of the content.

You, as the poster, own the rights to your comments and are welcome to post or publish them anywhere you choose. However, by posting you grant the forum/blog owner a copyright in perpetuity, which means that they have the right to publish those comments indefinitely in the same site and general format that you posted them in.

It generally does not grant them the right to take all the posts and publish them say, in print, although if those terms were clearly stated upfront at the time of joining, it might.

[Barbra]

very helpful, thank you Scottie

[OldWelshGuy]

Yep, as Scottie says. One thing to remember though is that intellectuall property rights exist on ANYTHING that is created by someone. The copyright etc is a slightly different area, and ownership is a different matter. T&C's are the answer but you can not enforce an illegal set of T&C's.

[piskie]

You MAY (note the word MAY) also find in some Countries, that you cannot Exclusively Own the Copyright to such published content without also at least sharing (maybe 100%) Liability for any libel or defamation proceedings that ensue.

In other words, Your Disclaimer could be undermined by seeking exclusivity on Copyright.

[Barbra]

thanks everyone. Here are a couple of articles on this topic that I found.

http://www.reasonabl...wns_blog_c.html

http://www.chrispian.com/item/276

http://donatacom.com...es/00000730.htm (re TOS)