Read a couple weeks ago about a small site that had to shut down after a Vegas paper sued the site owner for copyright infringement. Seems members posted quotes of articles from the paper's online articles, paper sued site, owner couldn't afford to fight. I don't remember what site it was, can't find where I read it, but this confirms the paper is filing lawsuits:

http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/editordetail.php?id=763

Then today I see this:

http://smith-wessonforum.com/announc...#post135571198

I don't know if what he alleges is true, but you might want to check into it, if you haven't already, and consider a similar policy if true.

 

What a great head's up, thanks for thinking of the well being of the community here.

However, there are a couple of issues I have with this....

First, people should know that it is not cool to repost content that they shouldn't. However, that is a gray area.

Not to mention, since we do not live in a perfect world and/or some people just don't realize that just because it is out there, it is not fair game...we have something nifty called the Communications Decent Act of 1996. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 covers that a forum, online service provider, etc. and its owners and moderators are not responsible for the content, opinions, or posts of its members.

 

I always thought it was ok to quote a few sentences out of an article, and would include a link for attribution. But as you say, gray area. So I'm not going to be doing that from now on just to avoid causing any boards I post on any possible issues.

Hope that decency act does protect, but I wonder if some boards are generating enough cash to qualify for deep pocket status, therefore becoming targets for nuisance suits from lawyers trolling for cash. You read about businesses, cities, etc, having bogus suits against them all the time. Even if they think suit has no merit, cost to litigate is so high they end up settling just to make it go away.

 

The Great State of Texas passed a law to hinder frivolous lawsuits a few years ago. It requires the plaintiff to pay all legal fees, court costs, expenses, etc. incurred by the defendant if the judge finds the suit to be frivolous. It has curtailed those types of suits from clogging our court system, even though Texas has two (2) State Supreme Courts for faster resolutions...one for civil/tort cases and one for criminal cases. The latter is the reason Texas has become so popular with the death penalty being speedily administered. This site is the BOMB and may it live FOREVER!!!

 

Wouldn't providing a link to the article increase that website's traffic? And, if I'm not mistaken, isn't that a good thing?

Or is this targeted at articles that you would have to have a paid subscription to read?

I guess I'm just missing something in all of this.