The legality/practicality of my website idea

[iamthel0rax]

What is the name of your state?Hello all, a friend and I had an idea for a website that we are seriously considering, and one of the things that we were concerned about was the legality of it.

We wanted to have a website that contains a directory of links to internet forum posts.. basically a reference guide. If possible, we would like to have text from other forums visible directly from our page, but we didn't know wether that would be copyright infringement or not. We would most certainly include links to the original post, as well as state that the information was from there, but having to manually contact every single administrator for permission would be extremely laborious and, well, impossible for just two people.

My initial reaction was that it likely would be copyright infringement, but then I realized that Google caches and makes basically every page in their engine available from their server, and I know they don't ask permission for that.

Any feedback is much appreciated.

 

[divgradcurl]

If possible, we would like to have text from other forums visible directly from our page, but we didn't know wether that would be copyright infringement or not.

It probably would be. Now, whether anyone would bother to sue you about it, that's another question -- but it likely would infringe on people's copyrights.

My initial reaction was that it likely would be copyright infringement, but then I realized that Google caches and makes basically every page in their engine available from their server, and I know they don't ask permission for that.

As I noted in another post, Google and other "service providers" on the internet have some statutory protections from copyright infringement liability under 17 USC 512 et seq. that are not available to owners of individual webpages. So what would appear to be copyright infringement when Google does it probably IS copyright infringement -- but they have some statutory protections that you don't have, so if you think something is okay "because Google does it" you might be in for a suprise...

 

[iamthel0rax]

Well, I'm in (upstate) New York.. which I know when it comes to pretty much any legal situation, provides the most limitations. Though, the web host I use is located in a different country.. does that matter at all?

 

[divgradcurl]

Copyright is federal law, so it doesn't matter what state you are in.

The ISP can avoid liability the same way Google can, so it's location is irrelevant.

 

[iamthel0rax]

Hmm.. well, I've got two more quick questions about this..

1) I found a site that takes screen shots of forum posts from other websites and puts them on theirs. Does that change the circumstances at all?

2) In the case that someone was going to try and come after me, who exactly would own the copyright to the material? Would it be the website hosting it, or the person who wrote the post?

 

[divgradcurl]

1) I found a site that takes screen shots of forum posts from other websites and puts them on theirs. Does that change the circumstances at all?

Does the excuse, "but officer, everyone else was going 90 too" ever work? I'm not being facetious -- the fact is, there is so much copyright infringement going on on the web that it is quite impossible to police it all. Many copyright holders never bother to enforce their copyrights, others find that it is economically unfeasible, others don't do a good search of what others are doing, etc. Plus there are so many jurisdicitonal issues -- what if the alleged infringer is in another state? Or worse, in another country?

The point is, there is a lot of infringement going on, and a lot of it is unenforced, for whatever reason. But, if you go ahead and infringe on someone else's copyright, and THEY decide to be the ones to enforce their copyright, the fact that others are also infringing is simply not going to help you at all.

Now, will they enforce their copyrights? Is it economically unfeasible? Who knows. But certainly the potential is there. You'll need to decide exactly what the risks are and decide accordingly. Personally, I think that the risk that someone will get upset and threatening is relatively high (for some reason people who own these forums tend to take things very personally), but the risk of actually getting sued is relatively low. But that's just my opinion -- your mileage, as always, may vary.

2) In the case that someone was going to try and come after me, who exactly would own the copyright to the material? Would it be the website hosting it, or the person who wrote the post?

Depends. The website owner will generally always hold a copyright in the "collaborative work" that is his website and forum. The individual may retain a copyright in the postings they make if a) the posting is otherwise copyrightable subject matter, and b) the website does not explicitly transfer ownership of the copyright on the posting exclusively to the website. So, you could potentially be attacked for infringement by both the website owner AND the poster. Potentially.

 

[iamthel0rax]

Whoops, seems I phrased my first question poorly. I wasn't asking if other people doing it made it legal, rather, I was asking if a picture of a website is any different from posting text copied from it.

Honestly, I'm not too worry about getting sued, but I have found that often companies love to scare people by saying that they will. I have had that happen before with an old website, and while it makes for a good story, I'd like to know what the boundaries are before getting into another one.

 

[divgradcurl]

I wasn't asking if other people doing it made it legal, rather, I was asking if a picture of a website is any different from posting text copied from it.

Probably not.