Copyright On Online Forums

there's a 'fair use' principle in most countries allowing you to quote in context.

That's not a copyright infringement as far as I know.

No shade of grey here. Any published work can be quoted as long as authorship and/or ownership of the original work is clearly acknowledged.

Some moderators need a little time to read the general rules of copyright before making unjustified and stupid judgements.

Check the TOS of the originating site. Many spell out their policy on quoting articles, and most of the major news sites allow limited quoting with attribution.

How many times have you read a mainstream article containing something like...

'According to an article in the [name of publication] ([link]), "blah, blah, blah...", which supports our finding that...'

You'll find a few that explicitly forbid direct quotation without express permission...

"No part of this broadcast may be ... without the express written permission of..."

While one could make a case for a small, attributed quote used in context in a discussion (forum thread or blog comment), actually having to make that case could be expensive. It appears this particular forum operator has chosen to forgo the risk.

And, as is often repeated here in other contexts, a forum on the Internet is private property subject to the policies, desires and even whims of its owner. It is, along with setting limits for one's children, one of the places where "because I said so" is completely sufficient.

The OP specifically states "taken off another site like a news portal or website" - my original statement stands. If you want to raise spurious arguments by creating circumstances that were not extant, the OP will never get an answer. The fact that the moderator decided to act the way he did does not change the accepted rules although it does mean that he can't use the information that he wanted to on that particular forum.

Arthur Webster v Combe Stores, Exeter Magistrates Court, 2001, part of the ruling - "since the plaintiff accepts that he has a desire to see visitors to his domain and since the defendant was helping to increase the visitor rate and breaking no copyright restrictions, we find no case to answer".

This was quite an interesting case because an examination of the web site that sued me showed that it contained 'a quantity' of quotes from unidentified sources.

Maybe America is different but I think my argument is just as valid there and even more so today when the vast majority of web sites contain quotations and extracts from articles disguised as part of 'original content'.

Was wondering about this. Isn' it enough that you have proper attribution?

"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. For more information go to: Cornell Univeristy Law Center. 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."

Not brain surgery.

Apparently not, see the link in my post above yours.

Hey kuma1234,

That would depend on what each site's TOS and/or copyright policy states.

If the owner of a forum or blog state that all content/comments are the property of the owner, and are copyrighted, you cannot use or quote any material on said forum or blog without the sole discression or permission of the owner.

Kay is right, online content has the same rules as written and published works do if said content is copyrighted.

To bring this down to lunatic simplicity - there is not a written work that is not the copyright of the person who wrote it.

I can see the legal fudge with 'fair use' but it is an absolute impossiblibility to discover who owns the copyright of a lot of material on the web.

It beggars belief that people seem to think that copyright is something that is applied for and attached to a written product.

In every single copyright infringement case that has ever been publicised, the issue has been 'capitalising upon the written (or otherwise published) works of a third party'. The law is resorted to by copyright owners who see that the income from their work is being syphoned off by a counterfeiter or copyist.

Every single word ever written is the copyright of whoever wrote it until a measure of time after the writing or the death of the author - does this mean that because I write a sentence like this one, I own the words? No, it only means I have some proprietorial interest in the order in which the words are set down. It is quite possible that some of the words may be used deliberately or coincidentally by another person but whether this would constitute an actionable offence is most unlikely.

I can prove, beyond any question, the ownership of the copyright of important articles and books I have written but many people do not take the precaution of securing proof and would have a hard time to justify any claims of copyright infringement any way, which is why so many cases fail.

So, while the moderator has every right to exclude material for whatever reason he decides, that does not mean he is right to exclude information on copyright grounds. He might even be limiting the potential of an author to reach a new market.