dallashistory

The policy for this current events sub-forum is that any active thread will be kept indefinitely. Inactive threads are deleted periodically.

FAIR USE NOTICE:

On rare occasions this sub-forum may contain (for a short period of time) small amounts of copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in our efforts to advance understanding of moral, political, human rights, democratic, historical, and foreign policy issues, etc., especially as influenced and presented by mass media in the U.K. and U.S..

We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Note added Sept. 23, 2009:
This forum from its inception has always had a "use it or lose it" philosophy. The content is normally refreshed every six weeks or so. Additionally, any topics that have posts that violate copyright fair use are deleted on request.

"On rare occasions this sub-forum may contain (for a short period of time) small amounts of copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner."

first time i've ever seen this done on any listserv or bb forum in my life. there is only one person on this forum who was at one time an attorney. none of the rest of us are qualified to determine what is or isn't fair use.

Quote:
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
End quote.

Edited Quote from http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml:
In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
End quote.

Peterk wrote:"On rare occasions this sub-forum may contain (for a short period of time) small amounts of copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner."

first time i've ever seen this done on any listserv or bb forum in my life. there is only one person on this forum who was at one time an attorney. none of the rest of us are qualified to determine what is or isn't fair use.

Peter, if you are referring to me, I approached copyright (and other intellectual property law0 with fear, trembling and (after doing some research in it for Andre Norton and a local client who had registered a service mark in Texas), loathing. I sometimes question whether I was ever competent to render a confident opinion on what is and isn't fair use or any other aspect of that area of the law (it is MUSHY) - and since i resigned from the BAr and turned in my license, I for SURE am not going to remeber an opinion without making it clear it is NOT a "legal opinion". That said, I think the current academic practice is ultra conservative and gun-shy, though after the examples of such "historians" as Robert Bellisles and his habit of making things up and a number of high-profile plagarism incidents, perhaps they should be nervous.

Nevertheless, as an educated (I do have a JD) layman, I think that an attributed article posted as part of a political or social commentary by a member on a not-for-profit discussion board is fair use and would not fear any action in regard to such use. But that's me and should not be considered a legal opinion in any sense.

I don't disagree with Clyde about academic practice being conservative. Paraphrasing, it seems that copyrighted material can be used among a small group for educational purposes for a limited period of time as long as the purpose is not for profit.

When the sub-forum was new it didn't have ads or Google bots on the site so we were almost certainly in compliance with copyright law IMO, and/or more importantly, too small to matter. Now that some posts to this sub-forum can (in theory at least) last forever and we have ads on the site, it's harder for me to call. I think it wise to continue to follow academic practice. Better safe than sorry.

This is the only sub-forum on the forum that explicitly welcomes copyrighted current event news material pasted from other sites. I judge each post on its separate merits. Most fit the above (academic) criteria in the sense of being for educational purposes of a small group of interested individuals. Those that meet that category are left up as long as they are active. When they fall inactive for a significant period of time, it has always been my practice to delete them. That practice has not changed since day one of the sub-forum, although I did leave threads up longer during the long U.S. presidential election. More recently there has been little interest in the sub-forum. Fewer new threads have been started. I think I've posted more articles about sports than politics; and Bill Crane's thread has been the most active.

I fully agree with what Clyde stated: "Nevertheless, as an educated (I do have a JD) layman, I think that an attributed article posted as part of a political or social commentary by a member on a not-for-profit discussion board is fair use and would not fear any action in regard to such use. But that's me and should not be considered a legal opinion in any sense."

Copyrighted material HAS been posted on the Political/Current Events subforum, BUT it has always been attributed AND this site is a non-profit site. Additionally, such material that was posted here was already in the public domain.

I don't give a damn what copyright standards the "inbred" academia uses, as it has faint relationship to Federal law and is applied only to protect the academics who publish.

Keep in mind, adam and PeterK, that my complaint of a few days ago had nothing to do with copyright law.

I was upset that several hundred topics had suddenly disappeared over night without any advance notice. adam has used the lame excuse of "copyright" to justify his action. ........In another posting he stated that he has been doing this all along; deleting topics over six weeks old without activity. ....That is NOT true, because there would not have been hundreds of topics on this sub-forum one day and only 27 the next, as the activity level has dropped off in recent months.

Why do some Mods begin to believe they have unlimited powers? I've seen other internet forums ruined because of the "Obama complex".

Quote:
I was upset that several hundred topics had suddenly disappeared over night without any advance notice. adam has used the lame excuse of "copyright" to justify his action. ........In another posting he stated that he has been doing this all along; deleting topics over six weeks old without activity. ....That is NOT true, because there would not have been hundreds of topics on this sub-forum one day and only 27 the next, as the activity level has dropped off in recent months.
End quote.

Fred,
The above statement is incorrect. You have your facts wrong. From day one inactive topic threads have been pruned from this sub-forum after they fell inactive for a few weeks or months. Inactive threads have never been allowed to accumulate for more than three months or so, except during the presidential election when some topics remained relevant for longer. I'm sorry you never noticed this before, but it would not have altered my moderating practice.

I set up the sub-forum from day one to allow myself, Sharon, and others to post copyright material in full. It has been my informed opinion that in order to do that legally, certain practices had to be followed. I won't moderate a sub-forum that explicitly condones violations of copyright law.

I am going to try one last time. I don't believe Adam has read one word of my short post on this subject. I have no problem how Adam does his moderating or how he defines copyright law. My only problem is in HOW , when he makes the decision that a thread should be removed, the thread is deleted. Why not use the POOF subforum so everyone would know that particular thread is going to be deleted? As it is being done now on Adams Subforum we only know AFTER the thread is already gone. This has NOTHING to do with Copyright so if by some slim chance you respond to this Adam PLEASE don't even use the word Copyright in your response.

I'll try again to explain why I did not choose to use the Poof pending deletion option on this sub-forum. I can't promise not to use the word Copyright however. My preference in using the more lenient policy that is place on this sub-forum is because of copyright concerns. I will try to save that discussion until later.

Here's the nub of my reasons for the policy that I put in place for this sub-forum.

Every inactive topic thread on this current events/politics sub-forum should be considered to be pending deletion after the topic thread becomes inactive for a reasonable period of time. The only thing needed to keep a topic thread forever is to keep posting to it, to keep it active. When it becomes inactive (for a reasonable amount of time), it should be considered at risk for deletion.

This policy is more lenient than a policy where a moderator goes through the old inactive topic threads and chooses which will be deleted and which will not. It is more lenient because any topic thread can be saved by any board participant at any time, just by keeping the topic thread active. It isn't up to the sub-forum moderator to choose what to keep and what to cull. It's up to the board sub-forum participants. The power is with the posters. Any poster can choose to keep a topic thread indefinitely just by posting to it periodically.

My reason for choosing this (more lenient) retention policy for this sub-forum is not arbitrary. The reason I choose that policy was because I wanted (and others including Sharon) wanted to be able to post copyright news in full to the site. In my interpretation of copyright law, such copying is allowed as long as the material is used by a small group for educational purposes for a limited period of time. In practice, as long as the material continues to be used for that allowed purpose it seems to conform to copyright law. That is my understanding of the law. When the material no longer serves that purpose, and at risk for being in violation of the law, it is deleted.

Moving the material to the Poof (Pending Deletion) section of the forum would not change any of this. For example, say there was some copyright content that someone on our forum wanted to retain forever (even after it became inactive). In that case, it is my considered opinion that that would be a violation of copyright fair practice. That's why I have to mention copyright law. It is copyright law that is driving my opinion. As I understand it, fair practice allows a small group of people to use copyright material for educational purposes for a limited period of time. That's my reading of the law and my reason for using that rule for this sub-forum, so that I could post copyright material here in full instead of what was being advanced by PeterK at the time for the history sub-forums (sub-fora).

To PeterK. If you are out there Peter, it might be helpful if you would explain the "link and snippet of content" restriction on posts that you have in past said that you prefer and the logic you gave for that preference. I think you explained it well, and I prefer that rule for the sub-forums that contain historic content. I do not prefer it for this forum where I like to post current news topics from news sources such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, etc.

No harm ment - on to bigger and better things