I saw something very interesting that I initially thought may be of interest in another MB community. I was going to paste the text and a link on the other MB, and email the author of the text to let him know his thoughts were elsewhere on the net. I ended up not doing it because it was in The Pit and I didn’t want to edit out the language. In case you are interested, the thread was the thread on the Detroit Lions.
But it got me thinking… does something that gets posted here automatically become property of Chicago Reader? Even if it’s someone’s own thoughts. This person put a lot of work into that I thought it was pretty clever.
If I had done that would I be violating anything that I agreed to when I signed up? There would have been a link to the site and if the author wanted it removed, I would have removed it.
Does that mean if user X gave me permission to use their material, which they have the right to republish, I can do it without pissing Chicago Reader off?
Hmm. IANAL, but it does say ‘their own work’. I imagine that the author retains the right to distribute their work as they see fit, so if they are happy for you to use it elsewhere that would be fine. As I said, though, I’m no lawyer.