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Reminder: Posting guidelines around wholesale "deleting" posts MRH forum help
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MRH Founder 17,415 posts joef MRH Founder 17,415 posts
joef

As a reminder, when you sign up and post on this site, you agree to our posting guidelines here:
https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/posting_guidelines

Please note this part particularly:

Quote:

The content you post on the MRH website is jointly owned by you and by MRH. This means if MRH wants to take a single post of yours down for any reason, we can. It also means if you want to take a single post down for any reason, you can (although for mass deletions, you MUST discuss your desires with us first so we don't leave trashed threads or have modelers wondering where their important dialog with you went).

Let me explain this by making a brick-and-mortar equivalent comparison.

Our online website and forum is a virtual extension of our offices. In other words, it's our property. In effect, we allow you to come into our offices and donate things for the benefit of all our clientele. Once you have donated those things to us, we display them in our office space for all to enjoy and benefit from.

You cannot later get mad about something one of our clientele says or does, sneak into our offices, and then trash everything you donated to us. That becomes vandalism and is a mean-spirited and hateful act.

See the problem? Works the same with our online space we own and make available for the good of all.

We have turned off all deletion capability to protect against this problem, but we by necessity must give you the ability to edit your posts. But to then use your editing power to wholesale delete lots of posts out of spite or anger is not okay. It leaves the discussions on our forums and blogs looking like swiss cheese with responses and dialog about your posts now just hanging content without context.

First, we have backups and can restore posts you trash like this, so don't bother. 

Second, if you go on a post trashing tirade, we will put you on probation for 30 days or more so you can no longer do damage to our site. In effect, we implement a restraining order so you can't sneak back and do more damage to our office space.

I strongly implore any of you who may feel very upset about any response to your posts to step away for a day or two and seek to get some perspective. Text only posts can seem a lot more negative than they really are, so try to assume the best. If after a day or two you still feel upset, then use the abuse@mrhmag.com email to dialog with us about your frustrations around how your posts are being perceived and what to do about it.

Joe Fugate​
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine

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Joe Fugate​
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine

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joef MRH Founder 17,415 posts
joef

Insisting personal copyright on public forum posts

Some may insist they have total ownership of content they post in a public forum such as the space we host on MRH's website.

When it comes to intensely personal content, then yes, you can demand it be deleted, especially if you live in Europe and are part of the GDPR, their privacy protection act.

However, content contributed in a public forum context may not be as stringently "owned" solely by you.

See this commentary by a Dutch lawyer:

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... specifically with forums you will run into a problem that the discussion is disrupted a bit, or the archive is no longer complete [when selectively deleting posts]. That is a problem, because in such situations freedom of expression is compromised. People should be able to read what has been said in the past, and privacy should not be allowed to rip through like a 1984 bulldozer.

This problem was already recognized when the GDPR was introduced, and it therefore states in the case of the right to forget that it does not apply if the processing (the publication) is necessary for the exercise of the fundamental right of freedom of expression (Article 17 (3) GDPR ). In principle, a forum administrator can thus prevent messages from being deleted.

In essence, once you join in a public discussion online, comments you contribute become part of the public historical archive of the discussion, and you can't demand we just change history or destroy the context by removing your posts, that risks turning the context into swiss cheese that can't be followed. That starts to infringe on freedom of expression for the others that are part of the discussion, if nothing else.

Think of it like this ... let's say we shoot a video of a public group discussion you were a part of and then we archived that discussion for reference.

You could not just come in later and insist your video frames get deleted from that video archive. Not going to happen, it's a reference archive and to remove the frames with you on them would destroy the historical archive record of the discussion.

In essence, freedom of expression in public cuts both ways. Yes, you can freely express yourself, but you can't later decide to change public history and "unexpress" (delete like it never happened) what you freely expressed earlier in a public discussion.

Joe Fugate​
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine

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Kriegwulfe Regular poster 186 posts
Kriegwulfe

Research

A quick search showed these: 

American Bar Association

 

Contrary to popular belief, whether a book, work of art, lyrics, sound recording, or other copyrightable work is in the public domain does not depend on where the work can be found. Instead, determining if a work is in the public domain depends on when the term of copyright protection for that work expired—or if it existed in the first place.

Under current law, copyright protection for an original work of authorship “fixed in any tangible medium of expression” lasts for a long time: 95 years from the year of first publication for a work owned by an entity as a work made for hire, or the life of the author plus 70 years for works created by an individual author, regardless of publication status. The duration of copyright protection for works created prior to 1978 is subject to different requirements that relate to (1) whether the work was published with copyright notice, and (2) whether the work was registered and, if applicable, if the registration was renewed.

Harvard

 

Copyright is Automatic

One of the most common misunderstandings of copyright is how to get it.

There is a persistent myth that copyright is something you apply for or obtain from a government agency. One of the weirder compliments you may get from people if they like your artwork or writing is, "You should be sure to get a copyright on that!"

This is all wrong.

Copyright happens automatically, the minute you set something into a "fixed form" — even if that fixed form is pen scratches on a legal pad. You automatically own the copyright to any creative work of art you produce, the minute you produce it.



Stanford

If You Want to Use Material on the Internet

Each day, people post vast quantities of creative material on the Internet — material that is available for downloading by anyone who has the right computer equipment. Because the information is stored somewhere on an Internet server, it is fixed in a tangible medium and potentially qualifies for copyright protection. Whether it does, in fact, qualify depends on other factors that you would have no way of knowing about, such as when the work was first published (which affects the need for a copyright notice), whether the copyright in the work has been renewed (for works published before 1978), whether the work is a work made for hire (which affects the length of the copyright) and whether the copyright owner intends to dedicate the work to the public domain. If you want to download the material for use in your own work, you should be cautious. It’s best to track down the author of the material and ask for permission. Generally, you can claim a fair use right for using a very small portion of text for commentary, scholarship or similar purposes.

Copyright Advisory Network

 

Quote:
Can the posts on a public accessed message board...be copyrighted?

In the U.S., a post on a message board is protected by copyright.



Just food for thought.
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joef MRH Founder 17,415 posts
joef

The easiest way to understand this ...

The easiest way to understand this is by concrete analogy. Consider that posting into an online discussion is publishing your thoughts into a work, a publication, if you will. Just having the copyright to what you “published” is not enough to have it unpublished. If you have published a book in print and own the copyright you can prevent reprinting the book but you can not remove the book from public libraries or get all the copies destroyed. It is really no different with the internet. A free public forum is in effect a library for all to access. And even if we delete the source, the internet was designed to be failure resistant and part of that means websites cache content all around the globe. Thanks to sites like the wayback machine, old forum pages can last indefinitely. So the library example actually is quite appropriate. You may use your copyright authority to say no to republishing, but you can’t eliminate every copy that was published. Another example is when you start a forum thread asking a question. Some members may go through great effort to research and provide you with a well thought out answer on the public forum. Now you decide you want the post that started the thread deleted, which in most forum software deletes the entire discussion and all the follow on posts. Now you’re infringing on other people’s freedom of expression and in effect slapping them in the face in return for their efforts on your behalf. That’s why the library analogy is so appropriate. Owning the copyright does not give you the right to destroy every copy, only the right to limit further publication. In practical terms, that means we cannot lift your forum post and republish it wholesale. And ethically, we also should avoid calling attention to your post now that you left the forum rolls on bad terms. Legal precedent does indicate even owning the copyright doesn’t give you the right to decimate public archives, just like it does not give you the right to have your material expunged from every public library on the planet.

Joe Fugate​
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine

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Janet N Prolific poster 1,126 posts
Janet N

There's a difference between having a copyright and enforcing it

As I understand it, if you haven't registered your copyright, while you may possess it, you cannot enforce it in court.  At least, that's what a somewhat successful copyright attorney who has a channel on Youtube dealing with copyright issues and cases keeps mentioning.

Just food for thought.

Janet N.
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railandsail Prolific poster 8,773 posts
railandsail

I forget the year that some

I forget the year that some of our copyright laws (or interpretations) changed in the USA, but I seem to distinctly remember that at one time a person was required to apply for a formal copyright. I think it was only a dollar fee, and was virtually automatic. And the copyright holder was required to post the copyright symbol on the work.

I personally like this idea of notifying others that an item is formally copyrighted

 

 

Brian

1) First Ideas: Help Designing Dbl-Deck Plan in Dedicated Shed
2) Next Idea: Another Interesting Trackplan to Consider
3) Final Plan: Trans-Continental Connector
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