Purely theoretical (I’ve got two books in the hopper now, and am writing two others, and proposing some more, so I’ve got more projects than I could possibly handle now) BUT: say I wanted to write a book about this messageboard.
Would I be banned from the SD for so doing (on the grounds of, I don’t know, I’d have to be some kind of jerk to want to write a book like that, IOW, because TPTB felt such a book was by its nature unfriendly to TPTB)?
Could I quote from various posts? I realize that I have surrendered any ownership of my own posts to TPTB, as per the registration agreement, and they may publish my or anyone’s post at will, and I or anyone can’t say boo about that, but would the SD’s ownership of everyone’s posts prohibit me from quoting them? Would the quotations be limited to “fair use” and would TPTB take a restricted or a liberal interpretation of what constitutes “fair use”?
Could I out members of the Dope? That is, if got the permission of some Dopers (publicity hounds all) to publish their real names, would TPTB have some sort of problem with that? How about if I included a chapter describing how most posters don;t realize how easily their private information could be pieced together? Would that be a violation of SD regulations, especially if it encouraged readers and Dopers to do so once I’d explained various techniques of snatching the veil of anonymity of usernames, in theory? I assume TPTB can’t stop me from outing myself (on the cover of the book), or members whose user names are their real names, but are there any other obvious exceptions to the no-outing rules that TPTB will enforce?
Again, I want to stress that I have no intention of writing such a book (because I can’t really imagine a readership for it, and I don’t have the time or energy to do it) but theoretically a close look at the workings and backstory and triumphs and failures of a large messageboard might make for an interesting study, so I’m wondering if there is any sort of internal problem (apart from the external one of finding a publisher)?
I doubt it. We’ve got members writing all sorts of stuff on other boards that is quite critical of the board and its management. We know about that stuff. We haven’t banned anyone for that sort of thing.
You still own your own posts. The RA essentially grants CL a non-exclusive license. So you could copy every post that *you *ever made on the Dope without any problem.
Yes. And at least one of the Cecil books includes some stuff from the SDMB.
See my next response.
Without permission, you’d be limited to fair use. But in this context, fair use probably would cover what you needed. If, for example, you wanted to talk about one poster’s attitude about sex, you could quote several posts by that user. OTOOH, you have to remember what I said above–individual posters own their own posts. We probably can’t give permission to you to quote them. So even if you got permission to quote huge chunks of threads or whatever you wanted, you could still get sued by somebody who didn’t want to be quoted. You’d have a fair use defense against that case, but CL’s permission wouldn’t help you against them.
I don’t think that part’s right, prr. It says in the RA:
Republication of material appearing on the SDMB without express written permission of CLM is prohibited, except that users retain the right to republish their own work.
Point taken. I only meant that my posts may be re-published by Cecil without any compensation being due me. Still, the previous non-reddened section seems to prohibit what Gfactor says is cool, if I read him and it correctly: I can’t quote from the SDMB “without express written permission of CLM.” I mean, other people’s posts constitute “material appearing on the SDMB,” right? So according to Gfactor, if I understand him correctly, I don’t need CLM’s permission, only that of Dopers who are free to sue me while I’m free to defend myself as having partaken of “fair use.” But the non-reddened part of the sentence you quote seems to prohibit ANY use of “material apearing on the SDMB,” apart from my own posts.
Fair use is part of the Copyright Law. You have not signed away your rights in other matters by giving CL a license to use your posts. Neither they nor individual posters can prevent you from excerpting quotes within the meaning of fair use quotes for anything that appears here.
OTOH, lawyers could give you a very hard time by claiming that you have violated Fair Use by using too much of the material. The only defense to that would be more lawyers.
Yep, that’s it. It becomes a barrage of nasty letters passing one another in the mail. Cease and desist! Fair use! Noted exception! Does not apply! Does too! Does not! Does too! Does not!
This is an important point. There’s no hard and fast rule for how much is too much under Fair Use. Quoting a post in its entirety is almost certainly a violation, but how long of a quote is acceptable would depend in part on the length and nature of the original post and in part on the nature of the book. A work of criticism or commentary would usually be able to quote more than a purely entertaining work. A collection of weird or funny stories taken from the SDMB would be hard to defend in court.
Since most SDMB posts are at most a few hundred words long it would be difficult in most cases to justify more than a brief quote. A post explaining factual information would be less protected than a post that contained creative writing. We don’t have much poetry or fiction posted here, but we do get plenty of creative non-fiction in the form of personal anecdotes and opinion pieces. Although this would not be the case with most posts, there are also some Dopers who might be able to claim that having their posts quoted without their permission hurt the market for their own commercial writing. If someone wrote a book based largely on Eve’s posts about early Hollywood films then this would be competition for her own books on the subject.
The issue of “fair use” as a defense to copyright violation would be separate from the issue of an attempt by the owners to terminate your right to post here on the Board. Violation of the registration agreement is not the same as violation of the copyright.
So even if you were covered by “fair use” under copyright law, you might be in violation of the registration agreement, requiring that you obtain written permission to republish material.
Of course, that latter part may not be particularly upsetting to prr.
So does that mean if **PRR **comes to me with his book idea, and I give him complete and absolute permission to use any of my posts, that CLM has no say in the matter? If he gets permission from every Doper he quotes, does that cover the legal aspect?
