Hello,
I need some legal advice regarding a matter. It cannot be asked in one line, so here are the details.
I worked on a website (an Internet forum such as this one).
So I was hired to work on this forum by the owner a few years ago. Everything was going good. Basically, my job was administrating the forum and occasionally dealing with the potential advertisers who would like to advertise their products on the forum and I used to get a commission of whatever advertisements I sold plus my basic fixed wage. My one and only method of contact with the owner was e-mail and Yahoo messenger chat. Until about a year ago, the owner of the site completely disappeared. No replies to my e-mails etc. For this past year, I have been working on the site as I have always been like nothing has changed. I have been pocketing the money of whatever advertisements I sold and took care of the maintenance of the site. As I do not have access to the domain and hosting account of this forum, I have no control if the domain expires or the hosting subscription expires. If that happens, the site is gone permanently (until the owner resurfaces and decides to renew the subscriptions).
Now what I want to do is that I want to acquire the forum's "database" and make a new forum of my own with that database. I plan to run both forums simultaneously. The difference will be that this new forum that I will be running will actually be completely mine with complete control of the domain and the hosting account. Acquiring a forum's database does not harm it in anyway, it only creates a replica site with another name.
For those of you who don't know what a "database" is, a forum's database is the users, posts and threads on the forum. So for example, the database of freeadvice.com forum contains primarily users, posts and threads on this forum. This means that if you have the forum database of freeadvice.com, you can create an exact replica forum. The only difference will be the domain name will be different. So if you took the database today and apply it on your own site, you will have all the users, posts and threads of freeadvice.com as of today.
I am not sure if the forum is legally copyright protected or not. But I'm not sure if forums can actually be copyright protected as all the content on there is posted by many different users (and not the owner himself). But I am not sure if they are protected legally. Just for your information, the total worth of the site is MAXIMUM $8-10k. Not more.
So my questions are,
Question 1: Is what I am thinking about doing illegal?
Question 2: If I do this and the forum owner ever resurfaces in future - can he take a legal action against me for taking his forum's database at one point in time and using it to create my own forum?
I, personally, think that after working on it for over a year without being paid any wage I have earned the right to do this.
Answers from legal experts will be appreciated.
Thank you!
I need some legal advice regarding a matter. It cannot be asked in one line, so here are the details.
I worked on a website (an Internet forum such as this one).
So I was hired to work on this forum by the owner a few years ago. Everything was going good. Basically, my job was administrating the forum and occasionally dealing with the potential advertisers who would like to advertise their products on the forum and I used to get a commission of whatever advertisements I sold plus my basic fixed wage. My one and only method of contact with the owner was e-mail and Yahoo messenger chat. Until about a year ago, the owner of the site completely disappeared. No replies to my e-mails etc. For this past year, I have been working on the site as I have always been like nothing has changed. I have been pocketing the money of whatever advertisements I sold and took care of the maintenance of the site. As I do not have access to the domain and hosting account of this forum, I have no control if the domain expires or the hosting subscription expires. If that happens, the site is gone permanently (until the owner resurfaces and decides to renew the subscriptions).
Now what I want to do is that I want to acquire the forum's "database" and make a new forum of my own with that database. I plan to run both forums simultaneously. The difference will be that this new forum that I will be running will actually be completely mine with complete control of the domain and the hosting account. Acquiring a forum's database does not harm it in anyway, it only creates a replica site with another name.
For those of you who don't know what a "database" is, a forum's database is the users, posts and threads on the forum. So for example, the database of freeadvice.com forum contains primarily users, posts and threads on this forum. This means that if you have the forum database of freeadvice.com, you can create an exact replica forum. The only difference will be the domain name will be different. So if you took the database today and apply it on your own site, you will have all the users, posts and threads of freeadvice.com as of today.
I am not sure if the forum is legally copyright protected or not. But I'm not sure if forums can actually be copyright protected as all the content on there is posted by many different users (and not the owner himself). But I am not sure if they are protected legally. Just for your information, the total worth of the site is MAXIMUM $8-10k. Not more.
So my questions are,
Question 1: Is what I am thinking about doing illegal?
Question 2: If I do this and the forum owner ever resurfaces in future - can he take a legal action against me for taking his forum's database at one point in time and using it to create my own forum?
I, personally, think that after working on it for over a year without being paid any wage I have earned the right to do this.
Answers from legal experts will be appreciated.
Thank you!
