I'm No Lawyer, But...

[Ross]

I think the new Terms Of Use says everything we create here is now owned by ProBoards:

15. USER CONTENT

"User Content" is any content, materials or information, not including Personal Information (as defined in ProBoards' Privacy Policy), that You upload or post to, or transmit, display, perform or distribute by means of, the Website, whether in connection with Your use of Services or otherwise. YOU HEREBY GRANT THE PROBOARDS PARTIES A PERPETUAL, FULLY PAID-UP, WORLDWIDE, SUBLICENSABLE, IRREVOCABLE, ASSIGNABLE LICENSE TO COPY, DISTRIBUTE, TRANSMIT, PUBLICLY DISPLAY OR PERFORM, EDIT, TRANSLATE, REFORMAT AND OTHERWISE USE USER CONTENT IN CONNECTION WITH THE OPERATION OF THE WEBSITE, SERVICES OR ANY OTHER SIMILAR OR RELATED BUSINESS, IN ANY MEDIUM NOW EXISTING OR LATER DEVISED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION IN ADVERTISING AND PUBLICITY. YOU FURTHER AGREE THAT THE PROBOARDS PARTIES MAY PUBLISH OR OTHERWISE DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IN CONNECTION WITH THEIR EXERCISE OF THE LICENSE GRANTED UNDER THIS SECTION. YOU AGREE TO WAIVE, AND HEREBY WAIVE, ANY CLAIMS ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THE EXERCISE BY THE PROBOARDS PARTIES OF THE RIGHTS GRANTED UNDER THIS SECTION, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY CLAIMS RELATING TO YOUR RIGHTS OF PERSONAL PRIVACY AND PUBLICITY. YOU WILL NOT BE COMPENSATED FOR ANY EXERCISE OF THE LICENSE GRANTED UNDER THIS SECTION.

-Ross

[Shah-Khohr of Ventrue]

Yeah, I noticed that too.

Sorta alarming, that.

[Webmonkey]

There are some interesting threads on proboards.com regarding this clause, however the gist of it is (and yes, it is legaleese logic):

Proboards abides by US law, including intellectual property rights. This means that they understand and recognize, by law that things that you write are not their property - however - you are giving them the right to publish it by submitting a post. When you submit a post, it is searchable by search-engines unless you hide or encode it, and Proboards is essentially 'publishing' it for you, to the world wide web, a dubiously not well managed (legally) public domain. You must give them authorization to publish it and not expect them to pay you for doing so or you could make a case that you deserve their $ they are getting from advertisements, etc. on this site.

Said a different way, when you post a message/story/whatever to a board and Proboards displays it, that is "publishing." You still own the rights to your post, but you are authorizing Proboards to use that post in conjunction with their Service, ie, to publish it. Otherwise you could potentially sue them for publishing your works even though you were the one who clicked submit. Additionally, if someone else wishes to claim intellectual property on something you've posted Proboards can say 'that guy said we could publish this and he knew he wasn't supposed to breach copywrite by reposting the entirety of JK Rowling's next book, etc., so sue him, not us.'

A non-paraphrased quote regarding this from one of the Proboards mods:

We have absolutely no intention of taking your work and claiming that we own it, because we don't. You are authorizing us to use the information you provide to us in conjunction with the service.

ProBoards intends to continue to operate as we have in the past. This update to our TOS is intended to make everything extremely clear in regards to the service we offer. Our lawyer drafted this agreement and we are using their recommended language.

The agreement doesn't transfer your rights away from keeping your content in the public domain.

We are not taking an exclusive license to the content. You still own the content, but by using our service and posting it to our service, you are authorizing us to use the data as part of our service. If you make a post on a forum, we need the right to be able to publish it in connection with our service.

As far as the human intention of the changes go, it is pretty clear what the owners intent is - not to steal content, but to cover their butts from getting sued for 'publishing' it, which is the whole point of a site where user-generated content exists.

Feel free to go onto Proboards.com and ask for more details, but the gist is that it should be safe to post here without worrying about Proboards making $ from your literary works.

Totally seperate topic:

That being said, in any sort of written artistic endevor, Copywrite requires you to actually go print something out and then get stuff you've written notarized and dated as written by you. Just because you wrote something on the internet doesn't automatically confer copywrite to you though that is ca common misconception. Copywrite is a legal protection that you must establish by placing a work into a tangible form (like printing it out on paper) and then get notarized.

If you are an independent artist/writer and don't work for a publishing company that takes care of that notarization and printing for you, the best thing to do is always write on paper or print your personal writings. You can then take these writings to any bank to have them dated and notarized. Otherwise there are a few other locations you can have the item notarized for a minimal fee. Once you have this done you have now established a basic copyright of the piece and can place it up somewhere else (like on the web). If someone tried to take claim for the work you now have proof it was yours first, including an established copywrite. Without that notarization you are S.O.L. regardless of what Terms of Service exist with whatever blog site, message board, etc. you use. It is basically your word against whomever wants to take credit for the work, and he who has the most lawyers wins.

There's lots more info on that here if you are interested: www.whatiscopyright.org/