Concerning Intellectual property

[Nikita]

Thanks to thrall for bringing this to my attention and asking what I thought about it.

Several of us have been here over five years, Mad Lews, Chuck, Ruby, Me, Pejanon, Alex (I think) to name a few. I'm not saying anything they don't know and am fairly certain someone will correct me if I'm unclear or wrong.

Just a few things I know about the topic:

1) Whatever you write is yours. Once it appears anywhere, in print or on the net, it is still your copyrighted work. The author retains all rights to his work. The work will still be attributed to you whether your name is on the piece or not.

For more information, you can download a pdf file on What is Intellectual Property?

2) Sites can refuse to remove your writing(s), whatever you've submitted or posted, but they don't own your work. It is not their property unless the writer has been paid and agreed to the terms. They can refuse to delete or allow YOU to delete your material from the site. Therein lies the pickle. Imo, that is an unfortunate stance, one that they can easily rectify.

Literotica, along with many, many sites on the net, will remove your story on request. It's a courtesy and wise decision. They are more likely to submit stories again knowing that they can be removed when they desire. Writers need to have this option because it governs whether their work will be accepted or not by some publishing houses.

That's not to say, that stories on the library, have been refused because they are still posted. On the contrary. It depends on whom you send your entry. The topic of publication is a whole nother hairy ball of wax more appropriately discussed in another thread.

3) When the site was bought, writers who wanted their stories removed were denied that courtesy. To my recollection, there was no mention of this new policy in the TOS when the announcement was made. In fact, the threads regarding that issue should be archived somewhere on this forum unless they've been deleted.

Other sites, like Myspace, have attorneys review their TOS periodically. Thus, blogs, comments, etc, can be edited, removed, etc., by the poster, profile owner, and/or the site.

One site responded to a concern voiced by a member that her (and others') blogs were/are captured by RSS feeds. The site owner provided a feature that would give bloggers control on whether or not they want their words to be excluded from the RSS feeds.

What is RSS? (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

4) Something y'all may not realize is that once you make a post in a public forum, ANY public forum, it can be quoted elsewhere without your knowledge or consent. For all intents and purposes, as soon as you hit ENTER, your words are circling the world-wide web. This is a public forum.

thrall: do photos posted become site property as well....as they are part of a post??

5) Not sure about the photos. Again, if your contribution is part of a post, it's open season anyway.

[craven]

it is indeed an interesting and as yet legally unproven area of law.

I can see that there are terms and conditions relating to the content and accessibility of postings, this indeed makes sense and is there for all of our protection.

I would ask though what would the legal position be if a posted article, story whatever was to be sold, and the request to have it withdrawn from the site not adhered to as:

The new owners, presumably a publishing company would not have signed up to any terms and conditions of the original poster, they would as we have highlighted wish to retain the commercial value of their acquired property and would seek its removal from the site.

They would own the IP of the article or whatever and be legally within their rights to demand the removal of and or royalties from the site.

As has been established the IP rights remain the property of the poster, as such they would be entitled to sell these to a third party.

Although there may well be terms and conditions associated with posting that cover rights at and whilst posted, they could not be legally considered to constitute a contract of sale, as no exchange or consideration has taken place. These terms only relate to the poster and the site. As soon as a third party acquires the rights this agreement would have to be considered as having been negated and void.

1. The rights to the articles are without doubt and this is not I understand in any doubt, retained by the original posters.
   
2. If they sell these articles to a third party, that third party will take ownership of said IP rights.
   
3. The third party would have no agreement or contract with the site and would seek the removal of its property from the site.

We are all aware that many of the traditional publishing mediums Film, paper, Book and music are itching to take web based distributor to court, a test case would be costly and time consuming, and given that it would not actually involve the original poster an issue for the site to consider at length I would advise.

This issue is really for the site to address, as once a poster sells his or her IP and posting, they are will be removed from any ensuing legal action and subsequent claims.

I can see no reason why the site would wish to expose itself to the potential for suits when the removal of the number of sold articles, which can after all only represent a very small number when taken in comparison to the overall site output; when the risk and exposures is potentially so great.

I have worked in my professional life with a number of electronic media platforms and I know that media liability insurers are getting very nervous about such exposures. As mentioned this is currently a legally unproven are of law, a test case would involve many parties initially lodging claims and counter claims, the legal defense costs alone could prove to be considerable.

Mention is made of sites such as literotica as a matter of courtesy removing sold articles, i would argue that this is not mere courtesy but sound and prudent risk management mitigation and good business sense.

[craven]

i also forgot to mention that as a result of my having worked with a number of these companies it is my experience as I am sure many are aware that whilst the site states that it is not liable for the production and dissemination of any defamatory or libelous posts, as these liabilities are retained by the original posters, it is not possible to transfers one liabilities in the eyes of the law. The site has a duty of care to ensure the validity of all postings this is not an unproven are of law and cases have been successfully brought in relation to this matter, notably in the US the Craigslist suit in 2006.

[Mad Lews]

Me-thinks a bit of the problem is the careless use of the word property.
As a BDSM site we should know better.

I'll just skip past the sticky wicket of banning the writer and clinging to the writings, that seems just... never mind I'll skip it.

No one is disputing the idea that you own what you write.

The crux of the problem seems to be how much control you have over your property once you have voluntarily posted it here. The sites position is you have given up exclusivity rights forever. Unless a bored lawyer or (as craven points out) an entity with very deep pockets (a publisher) wants to dispute the matter that is the way it will rest.

Two words of advice.

1)To the writers, don't post what you hope to sell, publishers frown on it.

2) To the administers, don't use the words ownership and property carelessly, it rankles the hordes.

and yes I'll still post stories again, but just short ones for entertainment.

Mad Lews

[craven]

sounds like good common sense to me, the best and easiest option for all

good work