12 US laws every BLOGGER should know about

That is a great article.

Thanks!

Wonder how strictly those rules will be applied... I'll come back and read all later.

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Who Owns User-Developed Content and Can You Delete It:

For those of you who have opened your sites up to user-driven content, be it comments, reviews, or a bulletin board, the question of who legally owns the content is an important one for deciding what you can and cannot do with it. Thankfully, the answer is pretty straightforward, and so are the solutions for dealing with it.

What is the law?

It may come as a surprise to many bloggers, but you do not actually own the user-driven content on your site. Instead, it is actually the copyrighted property of the author. The analysis is pretty straightforward; copyright law only requires that an author create an original work and write it out in order to grant that person a copyright. The fact that you do not own the user-driven content on your site can create a number of headaches for bloggers, such as an obligation to remove a comment whenever the author requests.

But by including a terms of service which spells out that you will have a license in all content posted in the site and more specifically that you will not have a duty to modify or withdraw posts but you may do so if you choose, you can ensure that you have effective control over the user-driven content on your site even if you do not have actual ownership of the content.

How to stay out of trouble:

1. NEVER treat comments as though you own them by manipulating them or deleting them without having included a terms of service which gives you permission to do so.
2. ALWAYS include an extensive terms of service that explains all of your rights with respect to user-driven content.
3.

CONSIDER that if you are allowing anonymous posts you will have no way of verifying the true owner of a comment when someone emails you asking for you to take a comment down. Consequently, you should make sure to at least collect basic identifying information before allowing someone to comment or post on your site.

Yeah, great article.Thanks $5 submissions

yea.. I know deep linking is becoming a bigger legal issue,

Yep. Also the forum/user generated stuff was pretty interesting.

yeah, as you pointed out already, this paragraph REALLY caught my eye

VERY interesting

Thanks Brother you are always up on the great info!

interesting, but what if you put a tos or statement that says that by posting or uploading you are giving up any claim to ownership or copyright to original postings?

You could put in that they owe you three monkeys and a frog.. Doesn't mean it'll hold up.