Enforcement of Copyright Policy

[del]

I've submitted a report of copyright infringement to 2 different mods. 3 days later nothing has been done. Go figure.

bullshit. i took care of what you reported to me that day. let's run through this quickly:

a: the appropriate way to address this is through either reporting the post via the *report a post* function-this works best as it gives everyone on staff a chance to look at it.

or
b: send a PM to a staff member.

if you don't feel it's been taken care of repeat steps a and or b.

calling out staff on the public boards is not a good way to achieve the desired outcome, is against the rules and may result in infraction and/or banning.

thank you

 

[QUENTIN]

It is not a violation to post an article on your website from another source so long as you provide a link back to the original article and give credit to the writer/news source. I know this because I went to school for journalism and there are several thousand websites that do this.

If you disagree with me, please forward me this law in its entire context. Everyone here seems to be a Monday Morning lawyer, saying this is a law, that's a law, etc. but we have nothing to prove it.

DavidS is right. I work for a media company and do ample work ensuring repurposed materials meet copyright law and avoid any infringement, as such I've become quite familiar with copyright law.

Posting a news article or editorial on a message board in its entirety with a link and note of the author of the original piece is not in any way an infringement of the law. Whoever has implemented the policy is simply mistaken about what the law states.

Posting a book or a full-length movie or something like that would be a problem, but even a long journal article sourced and attributed to promote discussion is not against any law and is common practice on the internet.

The "you can just post the first few paragraphs and anyone interested can click the link" is true and fair enough and I understand the principle of covering your ass just to be sure so if you continue to implement it as a forum policy that's fine, you should just be aware that what's being enforced is not the law but a misinterpretation of the law.

Assuming the cited text is cited to promote commentary, it falls under fair use. (United States Code: Title 17,107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use | LII / Legal Information Institute ). This is particularly true given that it's being used for non-commercial purposes (no one is charging for access to the article on this site), and it will not significantly depreciate the value of the original work (we're not The Pirate Bay or anything like it and people will not flock here to read articles, or even know to, rather than the site where they were originally published).

Regularly republishing articles in their entirety from a site that requires a paid membership or has a pay-per-article policy as a matter of routine might get you in trouble (see 98-CV-7840), but reposting an entire article from most news websites (at the very least those that don't charge per article or for access), with proper citation and on a discussion board for the purpose of commentary, is 100% legal.

See: United States Code: Title 17,CHAPTER 1—SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE OF COPYRIGHT | LII / Legal Information Institute , 106 through 122 establish the legal boundaries of fair use which posting here for commentary clearly meets.

 

[ConHog]

I got nicked for posting a copy of my own original work that I also had posted on Wikopedia. Worst part is that Wikopedia even posts on their website that they do not claim copyright on any of the material posted on their site.

maybe some clarification is needed.

 

[CrimsonWhite]

I'll clarify when you learn to spell wikipedia.

 

[Dante]

I'll clarify when you learn to spell wikipedia.

actually pretty funny.


and conhog does have a sense of humor thank gawd, but what about it? what about the copyright rule?

 

[Dante]

It is not a violation to post an article on your website from another source so long as you provide a link back to the original article and give credit to the writer/news source. I know this because I went to school for journalism and there are several thousand websites that do this.

If you disagree with me, please forward me this law in its entire context. Everyone here seems to be a Monday Morning lawyer, saying this is a law, that's a law, etc. but we have nothing to prove it.

DavidS is right. I work for a media company and do ample work ensuring repurposed materials meet copyright law and avoid any infringement, as such I've become quite familiar with copyright law.

Posting an article on a message board in its entirety with a link and note of the author of the original piece is not in any way an infringement of the law. Whoever has implemented the policy is simply mistaken about what the law states.

Posting a book or a full-length movie or something like that would be a problem, but even a long journal article sourced and attributed to promote discussion is not against any law and is common practice on the internet.

The "you can just post the first few paragraphs and anyone interested can click the link" is true and fair enough and I understand the principle of covering your ass just to be sure so if you continue to implement it as a forum policy that's fine, you should just be aware that what's being enforced is not the law but a misinterpretation of the law.

Assuming the cited text is cited to promote commentary, it falls under fair use. (United States Code: Title 17,107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use | LII / Legal Information Institute ). This is particularly true given that it's being used for non-commercial purposes (no one is charging for access to the article on this site), and it will not significantly depreciate the value of the original work (we're not The Pirate Bay or anything like it and people will not flock here to read articles, or even know to, rather than the site they were originally published).

Regularly republishing articles in their entirety from a site that requires a paid membership or has a pay-per-article policy might get you in trouble, but reposting an entire article from most news websites, with proper citation and on a discussion board for the purpose of commentary, is 100% legal.

See: United States Code: Title 17,CHAPTER 1—SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE OF COPYRIGHT | LII / Legal Information Institute , 106 through 122 establish the legal boundaries of fair use which posting here for commentary clearly meets.

I'm commenting here...

 

[JWBooth]

Song lyrics?

 

[CrimsonWhite]

All jokes aside, this board is a private enterprise. We reserve the right to protect ourselves from any potential litigation by whatever means we see fit. We don't care what the shit house lawyer's that post on this board think about copyright law. What we care about, is our protection from potential litigation. As the only shit house lawyer on staff, that falls to me. When you signed up to post here, you agreed to our TOS. That means you agreed to have your posts moderated by our staff accordingly. If a staff member feels that something needs to be sourced, either by link or other means, then it should be done promptly or it will be deleted.

 

[Dante]

All jokes aside, this board is a private enterprise. We reserve the right to protect ourselves from any potential litigation by whatever means we see fit. We don't care what the shit house lawyer's that post on this board think about copyright law. What we care about, is our protection from potential litigation. As the only shit house lawyer on staff, that falls to me. When you signed up to post here, you agreed to our TOS. That means you agreed to have your posts moderated by our staff accordingly. If a staff member feels that something needs to be sourced, either by link or other means, then it should be done promptly or it will be deleted.

Dude, you rock. *sycophantic smiley*

 

[QUENTIN]

All jokes aside, this board is a private enterprise. We reserve the right to protect ourselves from any potential litigation by whatever means we see fit. We don't care what the shit house lawyer's that post on this board think about copyright law. What we care about, is our protection from potential litigation. As the only shit house lawyer on staff, that falls to me. When you signed up to post here, you agreed to our TOS. That means you agreed to have your posts moderated by our staff accordingly. If a staff member feels that something needs to be sourced, either by link or other means, then it should be done promptly or it will be deleted.

Whoa, I didn't even mention that I worked at Shithouse Media LLC, how did you know?

As I said:

The "you can just post the first few paragraphs and anyone interested can click the link" is true and fair enough and I understand the principle of covering your ass just to be sure so if you continue to implement it as a forum policy that's fine, you should just be aware that what's being enforced is not the law but a misinterpretation of the law.

First, I wasn't talking at all about uncited and/or unlinked sources. That's at worst plagiarism and at best poor etiquette. I was talking about well-cited and linked works that are posted in their entirety (say a 10 paragraph news article or editorial, the type of things that get regularly posted here).

Otherwise:

Keep any rule you want as a rule you want. There's no law against posting communication with a mod about a banning either, it's just the rules you decided on for this place. No one's complaining about the rules.

All I was saying is, that copyright rule is stated as "following the law" and it isn't. Copyright law allows for fair use which posting a news article available on another free website here in its entirety, cited and sourced and with a link, doesn't begin to infringe upon. There is zero possible grounds for litigation and it's totally on the up and up legally. The fair use laws I provided links to are written in clear and easily discernible language (and I have to make sure literally hundreds of documents a week are in compliance with them), so there's no question about it.

If what you care about is truly and simply avoiding any potential litigation, you'd be in the clear allowing people to post full articles with links and citations (as a message board, you only have very limited liability anyway for what other people post - just as facebook and twitter are not responsible for the content of their users' messages). If you don't want people to post full articles simply because you don't want them to, well you make the rules and that's a different story.

 

[Dante]

All jokes aside, this board is a private enterprise. We reserve the right to protect ourselves from any potential litigation by whatever means we see fit. We don't care what the shit house lawyer's that post on this board think about copyright law. What we care about, is our protection from potential litigation. As the only shit house lawyer on staff, that falls to me. When you signed up to post here, you agreed to our TOS. That means you agreed to have your posts moderated by our staff accordingly. If a staff member feels that something needs to be sourced, either by link or other means, then it should be done promptly or it will be deleted.

Whoa, I didn't even mention that I worked at Shithouse Media LLC, how did you know?

As I said:

The "you can just post the first few paragraphs and anyone interested can click the link" is true and fair enough and I understand the principle of covering your ass just to be sure so if you continue to implement it as a forum policy that's fine, you should just be aware that what's being enforced is not the law but a misinterpretation of the law.

First, I wasn't talking at all about uncited and/or unlinked sources. That's at worst plagiarism and at best poor etiquette. I was talking about well-cited and linked works that are posted in their entirety (say a 10 paragraph news article or editorial, the type of things that get regularly posted here).

Otherwise:

Keep any rule you want as a rule you want. There's no law against posting communication with a mod about a banning either, it's just the rules you decided on for this place. No one's complaining about the rules.

All I was saying is, that copyright rule is stated as "following the law" and it isn't. Copyright law allows for fair use which posting a news article available on another free website here in its entirety, cited and sourced and with a link, doesn't begin to infringe upon. There is zero possible grounds for litigation and it's totally on the up and up legally. The fair use laws I provided links to are written in clear and easily discernible language (and I have to make sure literally hundreds of documents a week are in compliance with them), so there's no question about it.

If what you care about is truly and simply avoiding any potential litigation, you'd be in the clear allowing people to post full articles with links and citations (as a message board, you only have very limited liability anyway for what other people post - just as facebook and twitter are not responsible for the content of their users' messages). If you don't want people to post full articles simply because you don't want them to, well you make the rules and that's a different story.

note: legal disclaimer: "Keep any rule you want as a rule you want...No one's complaining about the rules."

 

[Gunny]

I didn't ask, asswipe.

 

[QUENTIN]

So you'd rather be wrong and misapplying the law because you don't understand it then politely informed of your mistake and given the evidence that demonstrates you were mistaken and that you need not implement a no-doubt time consuming rule anymore based on your misunderstanding.

Lovely attitude. No wonder this place attracts who it does.

 

[CrimsonWhite]

So you'd rather be wrong and misapplying the law because you don't understand it then politely informed of your mistake and given the evidence that demonstrates you were mistaken and that you need not implement a no-doubt time consuming rule anymore based on your misunderstanding.

Lovely attitude. No wonder this place attracts who it does.

Actually, we prefer to implement whatever rules we feel necessary to implement. If we feel the need to go above and beyond the law in order protect ourselves, then we reserve that right. If you do not like it, then you know where the door is.

Also, you know the rules. You have obviously read them. Follow them and enforcing this rule will not be so time consuming.

Stop trying to educate us and just follow the fucking rules that you agreed to follow when you joined.