Terms of Service clause

**virgo man** · 04-05-2011 02:19 PM

Womens-health.com is an atypical forum with an unusually well-mannered group of people, specially the regular posters. Its refreshing. A lot of credit has to go to the moderators. They don’t just moderate. They’re also solid contributors.

However I don’t like the following sentence in the Terms of Service (TOS) Agreement:

‘All content posted on the site becomes intellectual property of the site and has the right to be re-issued and published.’

As I understand it the above means that I give up copyright to content I wrote. Basically anything I post here I can’t post on my own web site even though I wrote it. Seems harsh to me.

I checked the TOS of a few other web sites and none had the above requirement. Most companies require only ‘non-exclusive use of posted content for publishing purposes, etc.’. Some even explicitly state that the copyright remains with the poster.

Before I registered I had read a lot of posted content going back years. I learned a lot. There is some excellent material in those closed threads – a lot of it written by the moderators. Its easy to imagine the web site taking that content, selecting the best of it, lightly editing and then publishing in book form. It could be a bestseller.

I don’t know if the moderators are company employees and if they’re suitably compensated for their efforts in some way. I hope so.

Virgo

**WildChild** · 04-05-2011 02:25 PM

This has bothered me too.
Moderators are volunteers and happy to perform this service. But I do write a great deal and will very possibly publish in the future. There are times I have refrained from posting up some thoughts for this very reason.

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 04-05-2011 02:38 PM

Thank you virgo man, respectfully for your comments.

I am aware that the rules are old, and that Little up-dated a new friendlier FAQ rules however, that doesn't help your question, perhaps Skywalker can at some stage address this further.

Personally, if I ever wanted to use any of my blogs, I will be going straight to permanantely delete,after copying them and I believe you can edit your own blogs.. As for posts, anyone can request the post be deleted and be granted if they provide Admin or our Moderators with their reasons...

I can tell you the owners/creators are great people no question is too small or hard to ask of them.

And as WC stated, we are volunteers. We liken it to a family of sorts and don't view ourselves entirely as moderators rather keeping the board clean, non-judgemental and we are otherwise posters just like everyone else.

**LanaBear** · 04-05-2011 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by virgo man

Womens-health.com is an atypical forum with an unusually well-mannered group of people, specially the regular posters. Its refreshing. A lot of credit has to go to the moderators. They don’t just moderate. They’re also solid contributors.

Totally off topic. I just had to say this made me smile, lol.

Okay... Carry on.

**ItsASecret** · 04-05-2011 05:35 PM

As far as I know in legalities owning rights like this means those who post here can be subject to criminal code if posted materials are of criminal nature. Things like posting illegal types of pornography, sometimes slander, illegal threats and so on. Basically if something like that is posted by an individual it can be subject to moderation by higher authorities of the website who can be legally obligated to handle such illegal matters because they are required to moderate forums to a certain content extent. Tracing an IP back to the original real life poster is possible with this type of thing, which is sometimes done with criminal cases. This means that when someone posts here the site now "owns" that statement and that statement is now up for moderation based on how the site itself wants material to be presented.

Also I am sure it has some basis in marketing. Having the right to share the content based on keyword searching, phrase searching, material content and so on.

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 04-05-2011 06:26 PM

ItsASecret,

That is correct including, if we feel someone may seriously be thinking of really hurting themselves, we have in-fact acted on that before.

And yes, spiders can take our posts and re-post under a heading, when googled leads them to this Forum which is a good thing.

Just for the record, whilst we don't promote nor wish to start deleting people's posts, we can, therefore should someone for instance want that material to commence a book, we can delete the posts here...

CW

**ItsASecret** · 04-05-2011 06:38 PM

The deleting of posts just means the poster has no say in their comments. Once it is posted it is no longer their personal property per se, sure it is their words but it is not their property in the sense that they have no say as to whether or not a post will be deleted, removed, edited and so on. Moderators though do not just willy nilly edit things, most sites have really good moderators that will say why something is changed and basically that comment is owned and if you do not follow the rules then too bad so sad basically.

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 04-05-2011 06:44 PM

The problem is mam, once posted it can be copied onto another Forum, place of reference under their user name.

Here I can assure you, anything edited,removed, deleted is for a good reason..

And, what do you mean most sites have really good Moderators? No way...WE ARE THE BEST MODERATORS OF ANY FORUM

**ItsASecret** · 04-05-2011 06:58 PM

And, what do you mean most sites have really good Moderators? No way...WE ARE THE BEST MODERATORS OF ANY FORUM

lol this site is not "most sites" it is in a league of its own. I have been in some pretty terrible forums where nothing is done despite people blatantly posting against the rules.

**virgo man** · 04-05-2011 07:01 PM

I thought this would be helpful. Here is an excerpt from the Terms of Service document on the answerbag.com web site (the capitalization is theirs, not mine):

<start>
OWNERSHIP OF RIGHTS; LICENSE RIGHTS; USER SUBMISSIONS

Ownership of Your Content. You retain ownership of your rights in any Content you post to the Service, subject to the non-exclusive rights that you grant to us as described in these Terms.

Your License to Answerbag.

Subject to your right to terminate your license to us as described in Section 5(C), you hereby grant Answerbag an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, freely transferable, freely sub-licensable (through unlimited levels of sublicense), non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, transmit, distribute, publicly perform and display (including in each case by means of a digital audio and video transmission), advertise in, on, and around, and create derivative works of the Content you submit or make available for inclusion on or through the Service, and to incorporate such Content into other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed.
<end excerpt>

Virgo