copyright policy for this board

[Off Rope]

What is the copyright policy for this board?

I may be mistaken but I understand that the NSS discussion board has a copyright policy and that all posts are the copyright of the poster.

Can anyone in authority please post what this policy is?

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

Regards,

The Dirtman

[Brian Roebuck]

Dirtman,
I don't have authority to make policy here as a mere moderator but I would like to make an observation. On most forums the moderators and administrators have the power to alter or delete posts as needed. It is also true that the person that makes the post can alter or modify it. Since posts can and sometimes need to be edited etc copy writing them makes little sense.

Dr B

PS: This thread was moved to "Forum Topics" due to it's content.

[Azurerana]

I'm a volunteer mod--by no means 'in authority' either, however I am pretty familiar with US copyright law
(http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sup_01_17.html) as I am a professional writer.

Since copyright resides in the creator or copyright owner unless specifically transferred under US law, there is no need to restate the obvious.

One would only need a copyright policy if indeed US Cavers Forum somehow acquired copyrights, which we (as a group of volunteer admins and mods) do not . The major reason the NSS has such a notice is they are a 501(c) 3 corporation, which does copyright information distributed under their name. In reality, the NSS copyright is a matter of permission--it merely gives them right to use and profit from the material. In most cases, the author, who in nearly all cases was not paid, can still use their own material, too. The NSS notice re their discussion board merely states the obvious, and says they aren't acquiring copyright to discussion posts like they do to print material.

US Cavers Forum is just a group of caving friends--we aren't incorporated, or any sort of legal entity. We couldn't 'obtain copyright' as a group under the current scheme even if we wanted to.

Reposts to other articles here are always accompanied by links to the original article. Since we are redistributing these articles for educational purposes, we are not profiting (as in making any money) from their distribution, and in all cases the original post is freely available on the Net (we are not incurring any loss of income to the original poster, and in fact, are driving traffic to their site by partial posts) we see no copyright problems here either. If some for-profit news outlet objects, we will gladly delete such posts.

The Net being what it is, (you have to temporarily copy material to your hard drive to access it) traditional hard copy copyright has to be modified. In short, we can only absolutely protect someone's copyright by not posting their comments. Which defeats the whole point of a discussion board.

In short--we post what we get-- but don't keep copyright to any of it. On the other hand, we have no control over others copying and reposting our (or your) stuff elsewhere, either. Most people savvy enough to use a keyboard realize that info put on the Net often acquires a life of its own.

Since all this is in keeping with standard US copyright law, and standard Net practice, we never thought it worth mentioning. (We do have an informal acceptable post policy--and if you're a caver, you can just about guess what that is, too.) But almost all editing/deleting decisions here are made by concensus, and can always be appealed to whole admin board.)

[Sharon Faulkner]

Dirk,

I think most copyright policies are the same everywhere, no forum can change the U.S. Copyright Code. As far as I'm concerned if you post an original message here, it is copyrighted to you, which would also go for photos. I'm not sure what information you're looking for though?

Section 107 (Fair Use) of the Copyright code specifically allows the reproduction of copyrighted text for the purpose of "criticism" or "comment". From a practical standpoint, any communication posted by the original author to the internet is fair game.

[Off Rope]

Thank you all for those prompt and courteous replies.

I understand the issues more clearly and will now begin posting disclaimers at the end of every message I post such that they cannot be used without my expressed written consent.

[madratdan]

Wow.....I just learned alot too. Thanks Azurerana. Your input is always appreciated.

Hey Dirtman. Put that statement down as your signature. Go into your profile and add it to the signature box at the bottom. It will show up at the bottom of each of your posts that way. It will add it to the bottom of all your old posts too.