two questions:

1. Is any article that I write and submit to this site still my IP or does it belong the property of JoeUser.com?

2. If I were to find my article copied and pasted on another website somewhere on the web without my permission, would JoeUser.com act to defend my IP rights just as Wincustomize.com protects the IP rights of its skinners?

*1. Is any article that I write and submit to this site still my IP or does it become the property of JoeUser.com?

Tech: Is it Wincusto that pursues theft or is it the regulars? I was aware that Jafo and a few others banded together, but when they notify a site does WC underwrite it?

It comes down to whether Wincusto and JoeUser are places designed for artists and writers to store their material, or if they are actively managing the material itself. I think what Jafo and the rest do is great, but I have my doubts that JoeUser could undertake the active management of material.

I assume all the material uploaded belongs solely to the writer. I haven't seen any upload agreement otherwise, so until we agree to give something away it remains ours.

The so-called nature of the internet is mass republication of columns on many and various sites world-wide. Fair use practices are common and generally understood to be that reposting is acceptable as long as the article is unedited and includes the name of the author and any available copyright information. A sample fair use notice:

"This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner."

"reposting is acceptable as long as the article is unedited and includes the name of the author and any available copyright information"

Not so. "Excerpts" are acceptable, but in terms of mass publication you have to cite a reasonable amount and leave it at that. The only terms under which Fair Use applies to reproducing entire works is for use by librarians and educators.

"Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances. See FL 102, Fair Use, and Circular 21, Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians. "

U.S. Copyright Office


That, even, is dangerous territory, because many dramatic and items of curricula require you to buy a license to use/reproduce.

I don't see anything about fair use that permits the complete reproduction of copyrighted material. From theYale site (as well as the EFF site), fair use is determined by: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Tech Cat an author always retains the rights of what they write no matter where it is published.

The only time that WC itself goes after a copyright violation is if it involves Stardock copyrighted material. We can delete infringements if they are on our site, but we have no right to uphold an artists copyright on another site.

Copying an online article is no different than photocopying a page out of a book. Neither fall in "fair use". They are both against copyright law.

Personally I don't care about legality of it. I just think it's lame when someone posts 2 lines of personal opinion and then 2 pages of someone else's words. Aren't you kind of wasting your own time at that point. This is a BLOG site not a message board.

Personally i wish JoeUser would nix the whole "forum" thing, I think it takes away from blogging.

Think about it, though. If it wasn't restricted to "limited portions of a work", then all you would have to do to pirate music, books, whole magazines, single articles, etc., is to include a solid, professional review with the pirated copy, then claim the content was there for reference.

If that were true, I could record a 30 second review and tag it onto any MP3 I wanted and put Kazaa to work for me.

JeremyG: Without the messageboards you'd have people treating your blog like a messageboard. It is good to have a less formal atmosphere for discussion, I think.

The policy is the same as what we have at WinCustomize.com. The articles posted are property of the user. JoeUser.com claims no ownership of people's works. Which is one reason why it's important that people own (i.e. create) what they put up. Fair use is one thing, but reposting someone else's work isn't just wrong, it's illegal.

BTW, we're willing to bend very far in favor of fair use.

But at a certain point a line is definitely crossed. When people start to post the entire article someone else has written with nothing added themselves, it becomes a problem.

If we started taking say Salon.com's content and reposting it here in full I suspect we would hear from their attorneys in a hurry. There's a lot of leeyway we'll give if the blogger is at least adding a reasonable amount of content to what they post.  But i've seen full articles written by someone else simply posted without a word added to it. At best, it's copyright violation, at worst, it's point whoring and illegal (creating new blogs with content from professional columnists to rack up points).

Brad Wardell- On the subject of copyright and ownership, JoeUser.com claims no ownership to what we write, but what is the situation with the comments on our articles? Do the comments become kind of like emails to us and are they definitely our property as well?

The nature of an open site such as this is for converstaion regarding various issues. To post a story for information purposes for others to see and then for a group to have discussion about is clearly legal within fair use guidelines. the above post regarding 'educatiors and libnrearians' was in specific reference to educators and librarians. There are many, many sites on the web that do only the reposting of columns, most without comments, all within the guidelines of fair use.

If the real issue is more of one regarding storage space on JoeUser then it should be discussed that way and not be put out as some kind of copyright infringement.

TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > Sec. 107.

Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -

(1)

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2)

the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3)

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4)

the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors

What's so hard about discussing a story that is linked to? People can always click on links to stories and still discuss it on this site.