was Gold - now panning copyright waters

Jim smith-wright

Western Thunderer
I do think this raises a wider discussion point. It’s less curates egg and more chicken and egg.

Yes a forum (any forum) has costs but it’s the contributions the members make that make a forum worth visiting. There has to be some value placed on that somewhere. So the problem with charging is that the members have already contributed. So where does the fee ultimately go? To the owners or to the contributors that make the forum a saleable project?

You can look at this several ways. If everything is free then everyone is in the same boat (simplistic I know)

If you charge the end user, like a magazine would, then is it reasonable to expect to pay a nominal fee for contributions? Ultimately you are taking someone’s work and selling it without reimbursement. Now that’s absolutely fine if that’s clear before anyone starts but less so when the situation changes after contributions are made. You could argue that this breaches copywrite laws as you are taking control of someone’s work without obtaining the rights to do so.

Well I think it’s interesting anyway

Jim
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Jim,

I agree that your point is interesting. I suspected that one assigns the copyright of a contribution to the website owner as part of the T&Cs when signing up. My suspicions made me go & look; I trust they (and Adrian) won't object to me posting this. My italics.

Para 3.1 of the T&Cs "We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our Site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved."

Payment for contributions doesn't sound promising. I fear that a penny per "like" would turn any forum into YouTube in rather short order.

Best
Simon ( another one)
 

adrian

Flying Squad
I did think that Heather's post in the Gold thread was a nice conclusion to that discussion and rather forlornly hoped that would be the end of the matter.

Hence moving the last couple of posts which seem to me to be drifting into choppier waters into a thread of their own.

As an advocate of free speech and transparency I wouldn't object to the posting per se however I will be totally honest in saying that I was slightly irked.

I don't have a problem per se with discussing T&Cs and copyright so people know where we stand, perhaps I'm being a little over sensitive but I would have preferred it if you had made it crystal clear that these are the Warner Site(incl RMWeb) terms and conditions not WT and as such I feel any discussion of specific terms would be better done on their website.

I understand that it may be part of a wider philosophical discussion on who owns what hence splitting off the thread but I do think that your inference that

one assigns the copyright of a contribution to the website owner as part of the T&Cs

is open to interpretation. My reading of the Warner T&Cs is that they state that they are the licensee of the IP published material on their site and that those works are "protected by copyright laws". To me that does not read as copyright of a contribution is handed over to the website owner but just re-iterating that material published is covered by copyright law whoever that owner may be. In much the same way a photographer retains copyright over their photo even if it is published in a book.

I fully respect and gratefully acknowledge all contributions to this forum and in the WT T&Cs okay some of it is boiler plate supplied in the software but it does clearly state

You retain copyright over the Content.

<which is why there are some threads with holes in them - not due to censorship but because the original poster requested their deletion>

Whilst I am happy to discuss general copyright issues on WT but w.r.t. specific interpretation of T&Cs then I feel it would be better to direct the query to them on their forum.
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
An interesting angle on matters, one which had totally slipped under my radar and one which would take a good deal of thought before I could form an opinion on it.

My thanks to Adrian for making the WT position on copyright crystal clear; a model of simplicity and fairness.
 

Jim smith-wright

Western Thunderer
Thanks for giving this it’s own topic Adrian. Just to be clear while my thoughts were triggered by what’s happening on RMweb I was really thinking of a general discussion about what makes a forum what it is. It’s not in any way a critism of any forum in particular and certainly not WT

<which is why there are some threads with holes in them - not due to censorship but because the original poster requested their deletion>

There’s also the gaps from hosted images links breaking too of course. Not all gaps are intentional.

Jim
 

Neil

Western Thunderer
I've had time for a bit of a think.

I put stuff up on the internet because I like sharing what I do. I expect no financial reward. I think I would be peeved to find that someone had monetised my content but I don't see the other place's gold membership as doing that because the paid for part gives extras over and above the normal forum stuff. Obviously if the forum went behind a pay wall I might then be displeased.

I suspect that I still own the copyright of my contributions, for the same reason that Adrian gives above, that individuals have at times asked for their content to be removed.
 
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