Ownership of electronic data

[Bravo8]

This is occuring in Missouri.

I am a moderator for a website that runs an internet bulletin board.

Recently, the server company pulled the site (without warning) due to it exceeding it's allowed bandwidth. The site owner negotiated with the company, and they agreed to host the site with no bandwidth restrictions in exchange for an increase in the fees and the owner agreeing to pay fully for one year in advance.

The site owner did as he promised, and the site was back online.

Six days later, the server company pulled the site again, despite the previous arrangement. They also refused to provide the owner a refund of the year's fees he had just paid.

He is currently consulting an attorney about a civil suit to return the money.

Now here's the question:

Who owns the electronic information that has been posted to the site? The server company will not allow him access to any of the forums, threads, or posts; nor will they allow him to even access the membership information.

Does the server company own the information, as it is physically stored on their computers? Or is it owned by the site owner, as he is the owner of the domain?

Opinions please.

 

[Ladynred]

Sounds to me like you need to read the Terms Of Use for that hosting company. Some hosting companies clearly state that ANYTHING you publish to their servers is NOT soley your property and they claim rights to that information. If this is NOT in their Terms of Use, then you may have the loophole you need to get your hands on the data.

 

[JETX]

Unless your "terms of service" gives you ownership of the forum contents (very unlikely), the service provider owns the data stored on their equipment.

I recently went through this same issue when a forum that I moderate went from Delphi to another site. Luckily, I had sufficient notice of their actions that I was able to archive the forum locally before closing the forum.