How do I go about getting permission from the Chicago Reader to use SDMB posts in my own work?
I’m about to start an interview thread for a piece I’m writing. If I ask questions and use posted answers in my piece, is the Reader going to enforce its copyright? It will only be published in a student newspaper in Canada, although I also want to post it here for the benefit of those interviewed without losing my rights to it.
IANACL, but it’s my understanding that the Reader maintains a non-exclusive copyright to material posted here – that is, by posting we consent to their reprinting from the content of our posts as they see fit. We retain our own copyright to our own writing, licensing them ipso facto by posting to use the material at no charge. Witty remarks by several of the long-time members and a number of the moderators were quoted as having posted on the SDMB (AOL version, I believe) in Triumph of the Straight Dope – those I recall as having been quoted include Toy Drone, PUNdit, LilethSC, and AskNott.
So… if the interviewees gave you permission to use their responses in an article, you wouldn’t need the Reader’s permission, and there would be no copyright infringement. Right?
If you read the statement at the bottom of the page, it states that posters have the right to republish or repost their own work. This looks like it means that you could publish the questions you ask, but the rights to the answers you might receive on this board are retained by the posters themselves.
IANAL, but I would guess that if you put a clear note in the OP saying that by posting in the thread, they gave permission for you to reproduce their answers, that would satisfy copyright requirements.
Thanks everybody.
No, you STILL need permission from the Reader for any publication you might do using other people’s posts. PERIOD.
I see you didn’t bother to wait for an official ruling, that’s not a good thing to do.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
I have removed the “survey” from the board.
We have allowed people to survey our members in the past, but written permission is always sought in advance, the subject matter is cleared ahead of time, and permission under copyright is secured from the Reader.
None of that happened in this case and we don’t appreciate it.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
I apologize. I hope I did not contribute to the misunderstanding with my speculation. Next time I will make it more clear that you should wait to hear from an Administrator on questions like this.
I really don’t want to be bothersome, but let me get this straight. If I post something on this message board, and somebody asks me if they can use it, I am unable to give them legal permission to do so?
You may, as you have that right over your posts. However, when it potentially gets to be a group like this, it’s a good idea to get permission from the Reader as well.
In fact, if you want to reproduce anything from here that is not your own work, it’s always a good idea to check with management first. And this goes double for anything that you might want to place on the board that is out of the ordinary, like, say, “surveys.”
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
I am not a lawyer, message board official, Indian chief, or anything. All misconceptions will be my own opinion.
That’s clearly contradictory. The disclaimer says that we, the message board users, retain the right to republish our own work, PERIOD, with no further restrictions. Thus we still retain the right to lease, sell, or give away to third parties the rights to our own work that we posted here. You’ll have to update it, if the “retain the right to republish” part is meant to be more than the mandatory exception to the blanket re-publishing right granted to the CR. (Anyway you should update it so that registration agreement and disclaimer do agree on the “successors and assigns” part.) Besides, in the registration agreement all it says is
Nothing about that posters agree to not keep the full and transferable rights to their work except for the nonexclusive republishing right granted to the CR, which is the only thing that gives the CR some control over our posts in the first place. It’s there because without this clause the board would be a mere communication medium, the complete rights would stay with the individual posters. It wouldn’t be the CR’s right, burden, or business at all to exploit, control, or restrict the publishing of the post material from this site, apart from operating it.
So technically we’re allowed to start an interview thread with an explicit disclaimer “by posting in here you grant me to use your information” and do whatever we want with it (if we don’t mind that the CR keeps the right to do the same). Still, the CR also has the right to not want its resources used for such threads, and refuse service. So indeed it is a good idea to check with the management first. And substatique did so.
It was explained how the copyright rules are to be interpreted (by a moderator even), and the further legal matter was clear. Czarcasm did not object that an interview thread in itself would be frowned upon, that’s good enough for me. substatique could have started the most inane and bandwidth-wasting IMHO-thread ever, afterwards pick a few interesting responses, ask their posters via e-mail for their rights, print a book and legally sell it, without bothering to ask the CR at all. How do we know this doesn’t happen all the time and people just don’t declare their intentions right in the OP because you might say no? If there is an obligation it is morally, not legally.
Of course you “reserve the right to delete any message for any or no reason whatsoever”, but why did you do this, instead of just closing it? At least it would have given other people a chance to see why you use quotation marks around “survey”. Was there another reason to remove it, besides the unsettled permission question? Removing a thread is a drastic measure, and I don’t appreciate it.
TUBADIVA will doubtless be back later to explain the whys and wherefores… her schedule doesn’t allow 24/7 board monitoring any more.
Without trying to seem argumentative, or picking a fight, which I assure you I am not…why do you feel removing a thread on a message board is a “drastic measure”? This does happen all the time, with or without fanfare…and the SDMB removing the thread in no way violates any “rights” of anyone, since we have absolutely no rights to free speech or free expression on this, or any private Board. 
The problem is, that’s the only kind of board there is.
TubaDiva, I understand your desire to avoid any sticky issues with the Chicago Reader, and that quick removal of the thread was the most expedient way to do so. I think I am technically in the right, but complaining won’t accomplish anything at this point. Fortunately I was wily enough to save the page last night, so I’ll email those posters whose responses I am interested in and whose email addresses are available. Since you removed the thread, I suppose it’s no longer your concern.
As for official permission, I was under the impression that moderators were official. In the future, I will keep in mind that this is not the case. I hope my tiny scandal will lead to a clarification of copyright policy in the user agreement and/or the posting policy.
The purpose of the thread in question was to “interview” board members en masse for an article that will be published only in a student newspaper in Canada. To avoid having to deal with this incident again, I won’t post the finished article as I had planned. (If you won’t let me use your board, I’m not going to give you rights to my writing! Nyah!)
So…in the future, if I wished to gain permission to publish from a whole topic, what procedure should I follow? According to your agreement, I don’t need the CR’s permission. How should I avoid scaring the board admins?
substatique, you started this thread asking permission on January 24th at 8:50 pm, Pacific time. You posted your sixteen question mega-poll in IMHO on January 24th at 8:53 pm, Pacific time. Considering the length of the post, I figure you spent no time whatsoever waiting for permission to carry on.
I wrote up the other post first, before I realized there would probably be copyright issues. If I’d been totally shot down in this thread, I would have not used the answers at all.
But point taken. :o
Slackers…
I have been privately asked for permission to publish my posts from this board a number of times. I have almost uniformly granted such permission. But that is an entirely different kettle of fish than a thread claiming prior publishing rights to any response made to the thread.
You ain’t got that. You don’t get that. The whole point of ownership of the message board is that the Reader owns it. Just posting publicly that you are asserting publication rights to any replies is more than just a copyright violation; it’s a poorly disguised attempt to use the SDMB as a personal publishing tool. It amounts to a theft of service. I would advise you not to use the material you have saved, since you have done so against the specific, stated wishes of the representatives of the Reader, according to statements you made after being notified by them that they did not give you permission.
Very thin ice.
Tris