Everyone owns the copyright in the material they post (assuming they haven't
copied it from someone else). if what they post is part of a thread (as
this posting is) then (in this case) Nick and I jointly own the copyright in
the combined thread material.
A copyright owner can prevent others from reproducing the material, but once
the material is out there published cannot insist that the material be
withdrawn unless the material in question is illegal (e.g., it's libellous,
breaks DP law, terrorism law, contempt of court, is pornographic, etc.)
Only in such cases is the person able to insist the material be withdrawn.
Ownership of copyright does not imply you can "unpublish" something that has
been published.
Not sure this really answers the question though.....
Charles
Professor Charles Oppenheim
Head
Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leics LE11 3TU
Tel 01509-223065
Fax 01509-223053
e mail [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Landau" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 4:56 PM
Subject: Who has legal ownership of the posts on webbased forums?
> Maybe someone can answer this which relates to Data Protection.
>
> This has been posted to a legal newsgroup:
>
> "Who has legal ownership of the posts on webbased forums...?
>
> Example
>
> A regular poster requests the mods to remove his account and all 2k posts
> (he has seen this request before and seen it done) However the mods just
> delete his account. He is now powerless to remove his posts himself.
>
> What is the legal aspect of this?"
>
> Such an example might be this group.
>
> I "resign" and "demand" that you remove all my posts.
>
> If someone has been so active in the forum (2000 posts), then their
> comments would appear in every thread and by such a demand would spell the
> very end of the forum.
>
> Indeed it has occurred to me that if one wanted to sabotage a private
> web-based group this would be a very good way of doing it.
>
> I have seen http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/policy/copyright.htm which
> compares sending an post to sending a letter to a newspaper.
>
> Nick Landau
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All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
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If you wish to leave this list please send the command
leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
All user commands can be found at : -
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[log in to unmask]
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