I have some questions about copyright law as it applies to Internet forums.
By way of background we're talking about a web site that will be owned and operated by a CA based non-profit corporation. I believe the corporation will be a mutual benefit corporation, but I may not have that term correct. In layman's terms I'd call it a club. The site will provide a forum in which members may post text and images about a variety of subjects of interest to the club.
1. Who owns the copyright for material posted in an Internet forum by members of the forum? Is the forum content copyright automatically held by the person who posted the content (leaving aside for a moment the case where someone posts content copyrighted by a third party)? Can or does the forum hold the copyright to that material? Can this be a matter of the policy set down by the site and agreed to by members when they join?
2. How should an owner of an Internet forum secure copyright protection for the forum site itself, but allow members to retain copyright of the material they post in the forum?
3. Assuming an Internet forum is owned and operated by a non-profit corporation as described above, what concerns or obligations do the owners of the forum have with respect to policing content posted by members to ensure they are not posting material copyrighted by other parties?
Thanks!
By way of background we're talking about a web site that will be owned and operated by a CA based non-profit corporation. I believe the corporation will be a mutual benefit corporation, but I may not have that term correct. In layman's terms I'd call it a club. The site will provide a forum in which members may post text and images about a variety of subjects of interest to the club.
1. Who owns the copyright for material posted in an Internet forum by members of the forum? Is the forum content copyright automatically held by the person who posted the content (leaving aside for a moment the case where someone posts content copyrighted by a third party)? Can or does the forum hold the copyright to that material? Can this be a matter of the policy set down by the site and agreed to by members when they join?
2. How should an owner of an Internet forum secure copyright protection for the forum site itself, but allow members to retain copyright of the material they post in the forum?
3. Assuming an Internet forum is owned and operated by a non-profit corporation as described above, what concerns or obligations do the owners of the forum have with respect to policing content posted by members to ensure they are not posting material copyrighted by other parties?
Thanks!
