Stolen content question (no drama)
 

Hey,

Can forum(s) owner be held accountable for stolen content being posted on their board or does it solely rest on the poster(s)?


Thanks.

This is complicated.

90% of the people on this board are angry and are going to tell you that the forum owner is liable for everything because they are mad that somebody posted their entire members area on a forum.

But realistically speaking, a forum isn't liable for what its users post, as long as it responds to proper take-down notifications. This is protected by both the DMCA and the Communications Decency Act.

But even if we look at this, not only may a forum not be liable for what its users post, but it may not even have any obligations under the DMCA to remove such posts. If a user posts content on a file-sharing or video-hosting website, and then posts links to such content on the forum, the forum may not have to remove those links because it is not hosting the actual content.

Then there are other arguments, such as the forum owner encouraging people to upload content to third party websites and then post the links on his/her forum. Then it could be argued that he is encouraging infringement and further benefiting from it financially. But you would have to sue the forum owner in court, and that forum owner would have to be located in the United States and would have to be hosting his forum in the United States in order for any judgement to be effective. And all of this would cost a lot of money, and carries substantial risk.

Let's face it, who wants to blow a load on lawyers?

I read this on wiki a while back and wondered how it might translate to forum owners if they display a link but dont host the infringing content.

"Many sites are receiving DMCA notices and taking down links to infringing material as a result. Because the links are taken down it is rarely challenged in court resulting in link liability being a grey area of the law, although based on previous legal cases it leans in favor of copyright owners.[5] Stephan Ott of LinksandLaw.com states that "linking to infringing content is unlawful and that is also what most of the courts say"

depends on the nature of the board, if its a warez board you are promoting piracy, also have a lawyer write you up a new user agreement to protect yourself.