New Board Usage Policy

[*crikey*mate*]

Discussion boards usage policy

Does anyone know

1) What is a Community Project?

2) What is a Group Project, and

3) "Posting web addresses (URLs), websites, or item numbers in the title of a post or threaded discussion"

"or threaded discussion" => Does this mean no links to things in our posts?

[cherry*135]

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@the_great_she_elephant wrote:

 So wouldn't really apply to standard chit chat posts on forums etc?

I did qualify my comment by saying "strictly speaking", and I agree, you would have a lot of trouble tryng to claim breach of copyright over a bit of general chit chat, but in some threads e.g the mental health support thread,  people do write about their personal experiences. Also, from time to time one or two of us  feel the urge to burst into verse. Anything like that is protected by copyright and anyone posting it anywhere else without permission - or at the very least acknowledging the author - would be in breach of copyright.

I should add a disclaimer here, that I herebye waive my right to copyright protection on any of my little ditties and anyone is welcome to post them anywhere they wish.

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I only mentioned general chit chat as this topic has been discussed here before in relation to copyright of a persons posts, where it was claimed all posts are published and therefore have copyright.

Personal experiences in the MH thread (as in your example)

Would that fit under 'an original expression of an idea or creative concept?

For a copyright to apply to a work, it must be an original idea that is put to use. The idea alone cannot be protected by copyright. It is the physical use of that idea, such as an illustration or a written novel, that is covered under copyright law. (US)

If you wrote a ditty that you thought was rather marvelous and you thought it was possible that someone would pay you to let them publish it,  you wouldn't be sharing it here first.

[the_great_she_elephant]

If you wrote a ditty that you thought was rather marvelous and you thought it was possible that someone would pay you to let them publish it,  you wouldn't be sharing it here first.

If someone paid me to publish one of my 'ditties' they would not be buying the copyright only the right to publish it; and depending on the terms of my contract I would be quite free to share it here afterwards.

Personal experiences in the MH thread (as in your example)

Would that fit under 'an original expression of an idea or creative concept?

Yes. Any original piece of writing  be it a poem, a story or a personal anecdote, is the intellectual property of the person who wrote it and protected by copyright. Whether it is fiction or non fiction is immaterial.

[cherry*135]

Yes, share it afterwards. Not what I asked though..which was would you share it first if you thought you could earn money from it. No one may want to publish it if it had already been shared. People who write poems, stories etc and who hope to earn money from them wouldn't be likely to post them on forums etc anyway.

Hiow could anyone sue for breach of copyright over a published personal experience, one that isn't an original expression of an idea or creative concept?

I could post my experience of, for example, breaking my leg and the treatment I received in hospital...hardly an expression of an idea or a creative concept.

All I am getting at is I think it strange to for some to say that people publish their words in a post on a general discussion forum and have copyright to them. Who would want to steal their words anyway? Anyone who thought they had a great idea most likely would know better than to share it around freely,

[cherry*135]

I can understand if someone posted an original cartoon drawing on the net and later found another person or a business had picked it up and started using it as if they owned it, as a breach of copyright.

[j*oono]

Isn't that exactly the same thing am? A cartoon or a drawing or a poem are all artistic and I would expect the person to have some kind of claim to copyright wherever they posted it.

[cherry*135]

I don't think I said I have any problem with copyright for cartoons, poems or drawings?

Just wondering why some people think their posts have copyright even though there are no original ideas or creative content in them. ..ordinary chat posts about the weather or what they had for dinner or their pet cat , or what they saw when they went out, those sort of posts. No one would want to copy those and pass them off somewhere else as their own.

[the_great_she_elephant]

I could post my experience of, for example, breaking my leg and the treatment I received in hospital...hardly an expression of an idea or a creative concept.

Of course it's an expression of a creative concept. It is you rown  personal account of a part of your life. That doesn't mean that none of the doctors or nurses who treated you could ever write their own account, but they would be in breach of copyright if they included - without your permisision -  the account you wrote.

If you look at the RTR thread you will see that on Saturday I posted an extract from a diary kept by my father while he was a POW. Are you suggesting that during his lifetime  he did not own copyright on that diary? 

With regards to my hypothetical poem. No, if I wanted to sell the publishing right I probably would not share it here first, but that would be a business decision, it would have nothing to do with copyright.

[cherry*135]

Yes, but you wouldn't post it here incase someone else did copy it and try and pass it off as their own and breach your copyright.

I think you assume a lot of posts do have anything worth being copyright in them . I assume most don't.

Original poems posted, extracts from soldiers diaries posted those are things I think copyright would be breached if they were copied and used elsewhere without permission.

[the_great_she_elephant]

I agree, almost nothing that is posted here would be worth plagiarising - that is why I said "strictly speaking." but a piece of writing does not cease to be covered by copyright simply because no-one would ever bther to steal it.

And there has been one case here where a very personal anecdote that was posted on a support thread was used by someone else in another forum without permission or acknowledgement. The person who used it had no idea thatby doing so  she was in breach of copyright, but it caused quite a bit of ill-feeling.