posting copyrighted material on message boards

[cloudman]

I am the manager of a public forum that deals with the flight simulator community. It is an MSN communitiy if that matters.
One of my members has asked me if it is illegal to post copy righted material on the board. It seems to me that this comes under the "Fair Use" law, but I am not sure. Any advice would be appeciated.

 

[ALawyer]

The fair use doctrine is at 15 USC 107, and would not permit extensive material to be posted, or material to be posted repeatedly. It is usually hard to predict what would qualifiy and would not as copyright owners take a NARROW view and users an expansive view.

 

[cloudman]

Thanks ALawyer for the response.

To be more specific what he is doing is finding various articles on aviation and aviation news on the internet some of which have photographs. Some of these articles and photos have copyrights. He will then copy and past the article and or photo in its entirety on the board.

Thanks again