Users submitted material and copyright

[NetNerd85]

What do you do if a user submits a comment on your website, how about an article of some sort? Do they hold the copyright to the comment / article or do you? I'm guessing by default they do but can you change this?

Users can provide a lot of value to a web site. What restrictions do you put in place to keep that value, if any?

What about ethics / morals?

[Snitchcat]

Copyrights... a sticky topic.

1) What's your policy on copyrights? Do you want to claim all rights / copyright to whatever's contributed to your site (not recommended), or, do you want to users to keep their copyright?

If you want to claim all rights / copyright, make this clear from the start. Example:

"Any contribution submitted to this website becomes the full property of [owner]. Contributor does not retain copyright."

If you claim all, one thing to remember: if some of your (potential) contributors are writers / authors, they will avoid contributing to your site (and these contributors tend to talk to each other a lot, especially where copyright / rights are concerned).

2) Default: Copyright of the piece / article belongs to the poster / contributor (unless they plagiarised / stole it from somewhere, in which case, it's copyright infringement).

3) Will you allow posting of plagiarised or stolen materials? Or, will you ban such action?

One way to think of it: if you find an exact replica of your site elsewhere, with only a small part(s) changed, how would you feel?

4) Suggested Restrictions:

All contributions must be poster's own, original work; if discovered otherwise, contribution(s) will be deleted and poster warned. If offence is repeated, poster will be banned and reported.


Consequences for any contribution which infringe's another's copyright belongs solely to the contributor.


If quoting another article for which contributor does not hold the copyright, source must be given, and Fair Use must be adhered to.


If responding to a contribution, posters can only respond to the contribution's subject; any criticism of the contributor will not be tolerated.


Re-use / re-print of any contribution is subject to individual author's express, written permission; please contact the relevant author directly.


All material on this site, unless noted otherwise, belongs to [owner]. None of it may be reproduced in any way, shape, or form, without the express, written permission of [owner].

Etc.

Another suggestion:

Go to a writing information site and look for information on Copyright, then find a writing forum and study their policy on members' contributions.


5 ) Ethics / morals:

How would you like your stuff to be treated? Respectfully and acknowledged that it's yours, or free for the taking, with no credit given?

I apologise if I sound harsh in this post; I'm an author and copyright is a sensitive topic, especially where 'claim all' and 'ethics / morals' are concerned. :p

Anyway, feel free to use the list of 'restrictions' suggested.

[NetNerd85]

1) What's your policy on copyrights? Do you want to claim all rights / copyright to whatever's contributed to your site (not recommended), or, do you want to users to keep their copyright?Generally speaking they can keep the copyright. If it was an article I'd like it to be unique to the site but they can still keep the copyright or perhaps joint, if there is such a thing?

Also this information if good to know for clients.
Another suggestion:

Go to a writing information site and look for information on Copyright, then find a writing forum and study their policy on members' contributions.Know of any good ones?
5 ) Ethics / morals:

How would you like your stuff to be treated? Respectfully and acknowledged that it's yours, or free for the taking, with no credit given?As long as it still had my name on it, I suppose I wouldn't mind unless I wanted to reproduce the content somewhere else. IMO, There definitely is a difference between copyright and credit.

I apologise if I sound harsh in this post; I'm an author and copyright is a sensitive topic, especially where 'claim all' and 'ethics / morals' are concerned. :pTotally understandable, I welcome the comments thank you :) I know how the post sounds - it kind of points in the direction of I want to "take" other peoples content or something which is not the case at all. It's more about protecting the site if it focuses on user submitted material.

[Snitchcat]

Generally speaking they can keep the copyright. If it was an article I'd like it to be unique to the site but they can still keep the copyright or perhaps joint, if there is such a thing?Joint copyright only appears if you and your co-contributor created the article together.

If you'd like it to be unique to your site, you can try the following:

"Articles contributed to the site will be considered for exclusive use on the site; if you would like to submit your article elsewhere as well, please email [owner]."

Or,

"Articles contributed to the site will be considered for exclusive display on the site for [x months], after which the contributor is free to use it elsewhere. The site retains the right to archive said article for [3 years] after period of initial publication on the site. Please email [owner] if you have any questions."

Know of any good ones?www.writing-world.com
www.fmwriters.com

As long as it still had my name on it, I suppose I wouldn't mind unless I wanted to reproduce the content somewhere else. IMO, There definitely is a difference between copyright and credit.Copyright and Credit: Er... your name on someone's contribution, or your name on your own, original work?

Clearly on your own work, it's fine. On someone else's? I think they'd object.

However, if you really want it on there (and it's not yours), get them to credit your site with something like, "First published on [site]."

It's more about protecting the site if it focuses on user submitted material.You might a try a disclaimer in this case: "The site does not endorse contributor's articles; all errors are contributor's."

Or, "Contributor guarantees that their submitted article is contributor's own, original work and that any necessary permissions have been obtained prior to submission of the article. Contributor also indemnifies [site] from xxxx." (Take a look at the standard "User Agreement" documents -- Yahoo has one.)

And: try Googling for "Understanding Copyright". There's a tonne of information out there.

Good luck!

P.S. I'm not a copyright expert, nor a lawyer. :)

[NetNerd85]

Copyright and Credit: Er... your name on someone's contribution, or your name on your own, original work?

Clearly on your own work, it's fine. On someone else's? I think they'd object.I meant copyright and credit are totally different things. I would never allow anyone to take credit for my work and I would never take credit for someone else's work. I always give credit :D
P.S. I'm not a copyright expert, nor a lawyer. :)You still obviously have more experience than me on this subject. Once again thank you for your comments, it has definitely given me enough to think about (and worry about) :)

[Snitchcat]

I meant copyright and credit are totally different things. I would never allow anyone to take credit for my work and I would never take credit for someone else's work. I always give credit :D

Ah-hah! That was me mis-reading. Sorry about that. (^_^)

Once again thank you for your comments, it has definitely given me enough to think about (and worry about) :)

No probs.

Don't worry about it -- a disclaimer and copyright notice usually work nicely.

[wamboid]

Snitchcat, or anyone else actually, I just liked the advice I've seen in this thread wondered if you would have a look at a rough draft of a site I'm working on Marshall Sports Page (http://www.marshallsportspage.com). Yes, I know it's ugly, it's a rough draft. I think the only article posted that I actually wrote is in the baseball section.

It will be covering sports in a small town, mostly dedicated to the youth activities that aren't covered in our local paper. In the interest of being complete, I'm putting headlines in for things that are covered by our local paper, but no article, just a link to the article on their site. I've got a vague verbal agreement to do this, but haven't shown them anything yet. Do you think this is proper? I hope to push them traffic. Other choices would be to leave it out doing neither of us any good, or write a competing article and I don't really mean to be competing with them.

Also, If there is an article in an out of town paper that I would like to link to, how should I handle it. I hope to have the site ready for the youth baseball season starting next month.

[Snitchcat]

Heya, Wamboid,

Sorry for the late reply.

You've a vague verbal agreement, right? I recommend you get a written agreement that says what can and can't be done by both parties. You'll need to be very clear about who owns what copyright -- obviously the paper owns its articles, and you own yours.

I'm just wondering about the statement under each article title, 'by MSP staff'. Will all these articles be written by MSP staff, or will some of these be actual links to the local rag's articles?

It's just a case of correct attribution of the article.

Example:
If the local rag is called 'MSP' or 'Marshall Sports Page', then 'by MSP Staff' is fine. If not, then the local rag's name and the contributor / staff writer needs to be credited. (This needs to be corrected (if necessary) before you show them -- if you've not yet done so.)

As for quoting the first couple of lines from an article that's not written by you, I think it's okay. But, you might want to check fair use for newspaper articles -- I believe it differs to fair use for books.

Have fun!

BTW: the Chinese ad on the site... let me know if you'd like a translation. (^_^)

[wamboid]

Thanks for the reply. I think you caught the site on a bad day to see what I was talking about from the local paper. Sometimes I do something similar to the following:

Valley, CMU Play to Draw
4/26/06 Article in Marshall Democrat News (http://www.marshallnews.com/story/1150272.html)

What I'd like to do is add the first sentence of the article so that it will make more sense, which should actually send more traffic to their site. I don't necessarily ever have to include those headlines. I've got a professional photographer working with me that will be selling action shots from the games on my site. Most will be for younger kids, but some high school, college, and adult league stuff.

When it says by MSP Staff, it only means that it was written by me and someone related to me was in the article. Summer leagues start next week and I have several volunteers to send me stats from the different age groups or actually write the articles themselves.

I didn't see the Chinese ad, what was it for? All of the ads are from Google, so they change each time you visit. I've had good luck with them. I was especially surprised when a disc golf article had ads next to it for disc golf equipment since its kind of a little known sport. Let me know what the Chinese said.

Also, let me know if you have any more suggestions to make the site better. I really don't have the time for this project, but several people in town asked me to start something like this. I hope I don't regret it.

[Snitchcat]

I don't see adding the first sentence as a problem; it's usually not. But, it's best if you ask the publication you're quoting from if they have any particular practices regarding such quotations.

However, there's the caveat: it's easier to ask forgiveness than ask for permission. ;)

The Chinese ad was all about cars. As far as I recall, it said something along the lines of, "Hot, beautiful, fast, click here for great cars." (I'll have to screen cap it if I see it again. Heh.)

As for the suggestions on improvements, I'll head back to the site when I'm not so swamped. I'm in the middle of work projects, editing projects, translation work, and lots of other deadlines. LOL.

Btw, did you post a link in "Website Reviews" to your site? Responses are fast. (^_^)

[wamboid]

Thanks again. Forgiveness rather than permission is tempting, but I'm trying not to step on any toes here. I think I've already ticked them off a bit, just with the competition, and I'm not really trying to compete. Several people have told me that they wish I'd reconsider covering stuff that the paper covers, since they think I do a better job. That's really sad since, as you can tell by my posts, I'm not much of a writer. The difference is that I don't print it unless I know it is accurate and complete. The reporter for the town paper tends to leave early or not go to the games at all and try to figure out what happened from the stats.

I probably will put it in the review section later today, don't know why I hadn't already.

[cosmin]

--
after i got an email from my ISP that my domain will be shut down until a 'copyright' issue was solved, i had no idea of copyrights policies...

almost a week later of calling the ISP's legal team and realizing that someone complained to the ISP that our community site had their article taken without proper acknowledgement of copyright to the author.... our domain was shut down! :eek:

... based on what the legal team from our ISP, the easy route is to REQUIRE your members to ALWAYS give credit (author name, and website link) of where they got the content from... and in general you should be safe.

[felgall]

If you are displaying ANYTHING that was created by someone else then make sure that you have proof that you have their permission to use it on your site. Using anything (except public domain content - which makes up less than 0.0001% of what you will find on the web) without permission is a breach of copyright. Copyright always belongs to the person who wrote it unless they assign it elsewhere. Copyright also lasts for a specific period of time (for example in Australia it is until 70 years have passed after the death of the author so only where the author died before 1930 would there be a possibility of copyright no longer applying). Just crediting the source of stolen content doesn't mean that you haven't breached copyright.