EnMasse

Corey · Non-Threatening Boy Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1972

Cueball writes and skdadl cites the idea that those of us who posted to babble gave up copyright in our work to babble/rabble, but retain moral rights.

I'm concerned about this issue and I've looked into it, and as far as I can tell, every babble poster still owns both the copyright and the moral rights to everything they ever posted to babble.

In the process you take when you register - agreeing to the Rules, Policies and Disclaimers you see after you're asked about your age (link via Google Cache for boycott-friendliness) - nothing is said about agreeing to cede any copyright to what you post. The only mention of copyright is that "You agree not to post any copyrighted work unless you own the right to the material." There's nothing about it in the general Policy Statement (link ditto), not that that constitutes an agreement because each poster is not informed of it and given a chance to affirmatively click on or not. In fact, "You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold rabble.ca and its staff harmless with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s)... We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author, not necessarily the views of rabble.ca or any entity associated with rabble."

A babble poster integrally gives rabble/babble a non-exclusive license to publish their post on the board when they post it; they retain the right to alter or remove the work by editing it. The poster retains copyright over their post, and subject subject to fair use and fair dealing citation and private sharing of the published work by others, indexing by Internet search engines, etc., they retain final say over all subsequent publication of the contents of their post.

The standard message on the bottom of each page, "Copyright 2001-2005 rabble.ca" (when are they gonna change that? speaking of which, Rules, Policies and Disclaimers still tells people to email Audra if a message is objectionable) - the standard message reflects rabble.ca's copyright in the collection as a whole. It doesn't sever each creator's rights to their own works.

[Edited to improve a Google link.]

skdadl · Your faithful treasurer Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 753

corey, I am no expert on Canadian copyright law, although I've seen enough messes to know that Canadian copyright law is a rat's nest. It is in some ways less clear, eg, than American law - "fair use," for instance, is an American concept, not a Canadian one.

So it's important to be cautious on this turf.

I don't know what the status of that overall copyright claim on babble is, and it may be that no one does yet in Canada. There is a case now wending its years'-long way through the courts, the case of freelance writers vs the Grope and Flail, on pretty much this issue: does the Grope have the right to reproduce electronically works that they paid for once - before the writers noticed the issue of electronic archives? As far as I know, that is still up in the air.

These days, if you write anything for the Grope, you have to sign over all publication rights before they will publish.

Unless you are Margaret Atwood, eg, who, I am sure, never signs over anything, but they need her more than ... etc.

When I was growing up, there was a distinction I grasped: if you sent a letter to someone, the recipient "owned" the letter, physically, but you still held the copyright and thus controlled permission to reproduce. And I think it is still true that the moment you write anything in private, it is copyright - although you'll have to be able to prove that.

But the commercial transactions have become murky. I think the common-law tradition of "moral" rights should come into play on how works are used by copyright owners, but all that is being redefined right now, I think.

Stephen Gordon · Dismal scientist Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 449

I'd like to know what the deal is here. There are several posts in which I invested several hours (really!) looking up data, doing literature seaches and preparing the occasional graph.

If needs be, I'd like to be able to recycle some of them.

cueball · Fulltime enMasse Member Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 2193

VanLuke

N.Beltov · Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:34 pm Post subject: more on copyright

I'm not a student of internet copyright law so my comments should be taken in that context. However, as a published poet, I acquired the habit of mailing, to myself, anything that I read in an open mike poetry event...anything that was published under my name, and so on. I kept those envelopes unopened. Therefore, I have evidence that the said publication was written by me by such-and-such a date. It's the poor man's copyright. Therefore, a fair question in regard to internet copyright would be the following - if I e mail to myself a copy of something that I wrote, and keep that e mail, does that e mail function the same way a letter to myself would function for the purpose of "ordinary" copyright law in Canada?
_________________
"...without revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary movement in the true sense of the word." Георгий В. Плеханов

VanLuke · Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 11:27 pm Post subject:

I sent an email to Prof Geist in Ottawa (a specialist in internet law). If he responds I'll let you know.

Couldn't you just save the thread as 'proof' that the post is yours? I don't think emailing would be any "more certain" that it is from you.

Interesting questions.

VanLuke · Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:35 am Post subject:

As I said in the previous post, I wrote to Professor Geist who teaches internet law at the University of Ottawa the following:

If I post something on an internet "chatboard" do I own the copyright? Does the chatboard have any rights in my work?

And he answered:

"The work is your copyright. The chatboard may have terms and conditions that assign the copyright to it, however."

I have not seen anything on babble that asserts they have the copyright of posts and Corey states the same above.

There is this at the bottom of the page but I assume this relates to their page layout etc:

"Copyright 2001-2005 rabble.ca"

Corey · Non-Threatening Boy Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1972

VanLuke · Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:15 pm Post subject:

Yes and according to the editor I mentioned earllier the copyright of my article reverts back to me right after publication but the way it's presented in his paper is his copyright.

Here are the entire rules of babble (displayed when signing up). There is nothing where they claim copyright over our contributions and as you mentioned before they hold us responsible -as they should- for our content. Ergo it belongs to the authors IMO:

N.Beltov · Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:41 pm Post subject: more on copyright

One of the ways you can tell a good poetry publication is when you turn to the copyright page and the publication explicitly states "Copyright belongs to the authors." Rabble.ca, or any other online site, could do the same, methinks.
_________________
"...without revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary movement in the true sense of the word." Георгий В. Плеханов

Catchfire · Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:57 pm Post subject:

I'm not really sure what this debate is about. Of course you retain copyright to your posts on any board on the internet, but this does not mean that you can order rabble to remove your posts. Once you post on an internet bulletin board, whether or not the rules or regulations mention copyright, you implicitly acknowledge that the board will publish your post, and continue to publish this post in the same medium and manner until the site disappears. They cannot reprint your post, on their news site or anywhere else, and I honestly cannot imagine why they would want to do such a thing. There are some great posts on babble, to be sure, but they are unedited and anonymously credited. Not exactly journalism material—at least in the form they take online.

What the babble policy statement says is irrelevant. In a public forum you know precisely what you are doing when you post. Furthermore, since the vast majority of posters remain anonymous, any claim of copyright or ownership becomes complicated. Regardless, it's not clear what this discussion hopes to accomplish by proving or disproving rabble's ability to retain copyright. They have the right to the posts you've already made in the form they currently take. That's the way the internet works. Especially since babble is ostensibly a discussion forum, and not a vehicle by which to "publish" per se. They provide a public space for exposure, so in that sense, they do publish. But not in the same sense as the front page, or in the same way one submits content to a newspaper that actively seeks and disseminates material. You are neither asked to post, nor encouraged to do so, so it must be assumed that you do so for your own benefit, and not the benfit of babble. The fact that our contributions make babble, and thus rabble better, does not legally enter into it. You retain copyright, sure, but babble retains the right to publish your posts as they were given.

Corey · Non-Threatening Boy Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1972

Catchfire · Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:45 pm Post subject:

I'm afraid your reasoning is faulty, Corey. First of all, the New York Times (and the similar Canadian cases such as one lobbied against The Globe and Mail) is not babble. Journalists sold their work for one time publishing in the print NYT, but felt (and rightly so) that continued online publication of their submissions was not included with the original deal. babble has no such agreement. When you post on babble, you know full well where your work is going: on a public forum, where it will stay. rabble cannot, as I said, republish your posts in different forms, including any original intellectual content. But, it can continue to support the website you originally posted on, because you knew full well, regardless of babble policy, where that post was going. You can quote me, minus the actual content of my argument and respond "No" all you like, but that doesn't make your insubstantial argument valid.

Besides, you still haven't answered why this concerns you. Do you wish to remove any of your posts from babble? Have you asked babble to do this? I expect they probably would, if you asked. But not because they were legally bound. Do you want to republish your posts elsewhere? Go ahead, the copyright is yours. The salient points in your OP are correct: you own "both the copyright and the moral rights" (whatever those entail) but you cannot legally compel babble to remove them; I have, however, no reason to believe that they wouldn't remove them if you asked. babble, in it's current form, is not publishable material. There are certainly nuggets of brilliance strewn throughout, and interesting processes of developing ideas, but there are only a handful of posts that could be published as is—and, as you and many others have said, the original poster retains all rights.

Is this merely a legal discussion or is there some recourse you wish to follow with regards to babble copyright?

Corey · Non-Threatening Boy Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1972

I'm just concerned about creators' rights here in principle, and on behalf of those who've posted more far more valuable things to babble than I; and saying that "What the babble policy statement says is irrelevant" certainly seemed too sweeping; it didn't enumerate ceded rights as many other such statements explicitly do, and it took pains to identify each post as the domain responsibility of its author for reasons of rabble's own potential liability, etc. I'm sorry that I put my concern here quite clumsily and dismissively ("No;") I should have fleshed it out at the time or said nothing.

VanLuke · Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 11:40 pm Post subject:

Rufus Polson · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:48 am Post subject:

Rufus Polson · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:51 am Post subject:

Catchfire · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 8:42 am Post subject:

VanLuke · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:16 am Post subject:

skdadl · Your faithful treasurer Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 753

I didn't think that people were mainly concerned with having posts removed from babble. Some people have a legitimate concern (Stephen is a good example) over their own rights to re-publish elsewhere; and then it is indeed possible that rabble.ca could claim the right to republish some babble content in another form. Newspapers often do this - a few years ago, eg, the Grope published a book called Shocked and Appalled, which was a collection of letters to the editor over the years - terrific book, and I'm sure it made the Grope a few bucks.

A lot of people are probably thinking these concerns are picayune, but serious cases can arise. Clarifying the structures matters, and I'm not sure anyone has really sorted that out fully as regards Web publishing. [/i]

Catchfire · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:31 pm Post subject:

VanLuke, I'm sorry, I don't want to get in a fight. I did read your posts, and I am very interested in web copyright law for my own reasons. While I would be much more inclined to ask people with a law degree than a PhD about this dilemma, the waters are murky to anyone, PhD (and I'll have one soon, thank you) notwithstanding.

When I said "any board on the internet" I didn't mean (and I was unclear) "every board" but "your typical board." That is, I haven't seen a single bulletin board, like this one, or linked to a news site that claims content copyright as its own. Since it seemed to me that posters obviously retained copyright if no such claim was made (and that did seem the general consensus of the thread, before Geist's reply) I wasn't sure what the thread was about, which was my main question. I suspected (wrongly, it seems) that this might be another guerilla attack against babble. My back seems just a little bit too stiff these days, I guess, what with all the goings on.

Anyway, sorry for offending you.

VanLuke · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:59 pm Post subject:

You did not offend me; it's just the dynamics of BBSs.

But FYI Prof Michael Geist seems to be the authority in Canada regarding internet law.

You are probably right that most boards do not claim ownership but years ago I used to post on The Intellectual Outcast Cafe and the guy operating it was making his living building up BBSs and then selling them.

I never read his fine print (hardly ever read these agreements, though I should) but I wouldn't be surprised if sombody like that guy would claim ownership to increase the sale value of the board.

Some of us on this thread were concerned that we might not have ownership of our own posts and while a lot of my posts are just blah blah blah I have worked very hard on others. (Some of them over ten hours) Stephen said the same thing. My own could be useful to me in the future and I was worried that rabble could sue me if I used my own work. (Not that this is very likely but I wanted to know the principles and so did most of the others on this thread)

It has never been my intention to ask for the removal of my posts on babble. I sincerely hope that babble will thrive even though I doubt I will post there again. I also hope that this board here will be a success. Then something good will have come out of all this shit.

I think we beat this subject pretty well to death.

Very Happy