Cpoy Right Question

[Samuari]

Is there a lawer in the house?

Along with the usu
al drivel, there is some terific writing being posted on the Role Play Boards. The question That I have is who owns the copy rights to items posted on a public bulitin board, or are they in the public domain?



[Edited by Samuari on 10-12-2000 at 04:01 PM]

 

[Deborah]

Interesting question, Samuari. I don't do the Role Play Boards but I do "steal" stuff right off this BB for my stories. Mostly ideas but sometimes even direct quotes.

I assume it's all public domain but I would like to hear the opinion of Laurel and some of our lawyers on this board.

In addition to a legal question, you have an ethical question. I personally don't think it unethical to get ideas from the board and use them in a story. And I can't go asking everyone if I can use what they said. I do, however, if I make it real personal, try to get the OK from that person. Most of the time they say they'd just love to be in the story.

 

[Laurel]

I don't know for sure about the Bulletin Board - I would have to check with someone with a little more legal expertise. It is my assumption that Bulletin Board posts fall under the same copyright rules as stories posted to the site.

Unless there is some other specific deal, the copyrights to all stories are retained by the individual authors who submitted them. The authors agree to grant Literotica the non-exclusive right to publish the stories online at this specific URL, but they do not release any of their rights to the stories.

I know we have a few lawyers who frequent the board, and I would be interested to hear their opinions on what our "official" policy on BB posts should be in this regard.

Our main concern, as always, is protecting author's rights while making the material on the site as freely available as possible.

 

[Samuari]

I don't know for sure about the Bulletin Board - I would have to check with someone with a little more legal expertise. It is my assumption that Bulletin Board posts fall under the same copyright rules as stories posted to the site.

Unless there is some other specific deal, the copyrights to all stories are retained by the individual authors who submitted them. The authors agree to grant Literotica the non-exclusive right to publish the stories online at this specific URL, but they do not release any of their rights to the stories.

I know we have a few lawyers who frequent the board, and I would be interested to hear their opinions on what our "official" policy on BB posts should be in this regard.

Our main concern, as always, is protecting author's rights while making the material on the site as freely available as possible.

Ah lovly lady, I certinally have no problem with you or any policy that you have.

The posts to the rpg boards though are different, it seems to me. The stories there are the result of many (in some cases a great many) colaborators that meet in an enviroment that you provide, under rules that you have set up. I was hopping that you might hold the copyright to such materal. That would enable you to license it back to us so that we could use it in copy righted materal, with out having the water muddied by public domaine materal.
Where is a lawer when you need one?

 

[Ezzy]

The copyright for each section posted by each individual would still be held by that individual, unless they have signed away their rights to that specific material.

Sorry Samurai I think this is the answer you didn't want.

The only way round it would be to ask each person who posted; if they would object to your use of it, in some other specified form.

EZ http://smilecwm.tripod.com/cwm2/sleep.gif

 

[Laurel]

Yeah, what Ezzy said. You hold the copyright to the bits you wrote, and the other authors hold the copyright to the bits they wrote. No one can claim a copyright on the entire piece. At least that's my understanding of it.