Dano,

But a person with enough money or will to afford a lawyer can make an
issue of such use and require removal, even if no monetary damages are
assessed.

In the cases at hand (email list archives) the copyright owner may not need a lawyer, at least in the U.S. - the take-down provisions of the DMCA/OCILLA may suffice. But not if the poster is equally steely-eyed and demands a put-back. At that point the copyright holder must decide to file suit or let it go.

I can see why Mark has continued to let posters retain control of
their content, since he has the most to lose.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that he has. But given the TOS's license provisions he doesn't really need to. At least not in straightforward cases.

On the other hand it might spare him an infringement notice if a user infringes a third-party's copyright, and the user himself comes to understand/regret their action and chooses to delete the offending content him/herself. The user might rightly fear having their own account closed for the TOS violation, and thereby lose control of their own content.

By the way, registration is no longer required for most copyright
issues as long as one can prove they are the original source.

Registration is not required to make use of the DMCA's take-down provisions.

But it is required (in the U.S.) to file the actual infringement suit, and as I said prompt registration ("before the infringement began or within three months after the first publication") is required to be awarded statutory damages. And I see, also attorney's fees:


Oh, and the usual IANAL disclaimer goes here. But I have done my reading and this is far from my first rodeo where concerns arguing about how copyright applies to email list postings.

Shal


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开云体育

Remember too that (under U.S. law) copyright enforcement is
primarily about the commercial value of the work. If the work
has no commercial value then there are no damages to be
recovered in an infringement suit (statutory damages are only
available if you've promptly registered the work on publication).

Shal, you're mixing up enforcement and penalties. Enforcement is about stopping the violation of a copyright. Penalties are typically assessed based on value. But a person with enough money or will to afford a lawyer can make an issue of such use and require removal, even if no monetary damages are assessed. There are many internet forums that are very concerned about such issues. Admitted, the written word is the most difficult to prove originality, but on a group that insists on not removing anything, that might not be so difficult. When one mixes in the possibility of paid premium groups where the content arguably *is* the product, it might get messier. I can see why Mark has continued to let posters retain control of their content, since he has the most to lose.

By the way, registration is no longer required for most copyright issues as long as one can prove they are the original source. Photos are the best example of this; copyright begins at the creation and that image need not be registered nor published. As I noted before, proving originality of the written word is more problematic, but in such a situation, a group's stated rules requiring that users give up control of their content looks bad.

Yes, I tend to take a very conservative viewpoint of copyright law. I have on a couple occasions knowingly violated it myself, although I made every effort to contact the source and credit them even though they never responded.

I still believe the safest way to deal with the situation in question is to quote the original poster in a reply where one is protected by fair use. This might also be a good way to deal with misinformation, since groups.io keeps everything together in threads. I could also see adding a moderator note to suc a post noting it's controversial nature and directing the reader to a rebuttal.

For more information see for a start.

Dano

On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 02:15 pm, toki wrote:

I am not a lawyer.
This is not legal advice.

I think this says it all.?

Bruce?
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On 06/07/18 06:00 PM, Sharon Villines via Groups.Io wrote:

I don’t think email falls under “creation” but under letters. And letters do belong to the person to whom they are written aren’t they?

The physical letter _usually_ (^1) belongs to the recipient.
The copyright belongs to the author of the letter.

Having said that, the question of a person replying to such a post and quoting part of the material originally posted would seem to fall into a gray area.

In the US, that probably falls under "Fair Use".

European law, in general, does not recognize "Fair Use". However, such
quotation was usually regarded as trivial, and, as a practical matter,
unenforceable. However, the EU is in the middle of making major changes
to copyright law. Whilst I don't think that the net result will be as
dire as the critics claim, it isn't as minimal in its impact, as the
advocates claim. If the critics are right, then such quoting is legal
only if the author consents to the quotation, and the appropriate
royalty payments have been made. One horror case scenario claims that
blanket waivers are unacceptable, and each contract has to be
individually negotiated. I don't think the European parliamentarians are
quite that stupid. OTOH these are government bureaucrats working in
conjunction with politicians, so who knows.

Is such quotation allowed under the shared commons allowances as a

reasonable use for educational discussions and common discourse?

That depends upon the precise wording of all licenses that:
* the content is distributed under;
* that the distributed has, related to distribution of said content;
* The law in the legal jurisdiction of the person who is claiming
copyright infringement;

Much as I'd like to think that it is never an issue, some people have
far more money than brains, and are perfectly willing to disregard the
advice of their solicitor, to do the money-wasting thing.

Sometimes, the lawsuit is filed, not for financial gain, but because the
plaintiff is deliberately seeking The Streisand Effect.

I haven’t checked the current version but the law used to say "500 words or less" for educational, etc, purposes, and without the intention of replacing the original.

US copyright law doesn't specify a minimum, in terms of either words, or
percentage of work.

^1: The exceptions are usually due to signing NDAs, or similar contracts.

I am not a lawyer.
This is not legal advice.

jonathon

Dano,

Something that has not been mentioned is Copyright Law. Like you,
Shal, I believe a person has the right to their own creations
(writing, artistic, etc.) by copyright law. To prevent a member from
deleting their own content may be an illegal 'taking' by removing
control from the author/creator, and retaining it by the group owner.

No, I don't think Copyright applies in that way. And even if it did, by posting on Groups.io you've given a perpetual and irrevocable license to display your content.
/static/tos

When I say that I think a user ought to have the ability to delete their content, and terminate the license to display it, I mean that as a "moral right", not a legal one.

In this, I'm inspired by the former Yahoo TOS, which did provide that Yahoo's license to display your content ends when you or they remove it from the site. I haven't checked Oath's new terms to see if that provision survives.

Having said that, the question of a person replying to such a post and
quoting part of the material originally posted would seem to fall into
a gray area. Is such quotation allowed under the shared commons
allowances as a reasonable use for educational discussions and common
discourse?

That's probably something lawyers could argue over. But at least in the U.S. quoting only part of the post improves your case for treating the quote as "fair use".

Remember too that (under U.S. law) copyright enforcement is primarily about the commercial value of the work. If the work has no commercial value then there are no damages to be recovered in an infringement suit (statutory damages are only available if you've promptly registered the work on publication).

Shal


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On Jul 6, 2018, at 9:56 AM, D R Stinson <dano@...> wrote:

Something that has not been mentioned is Copyright Law. Like you, Shal, I believe a person has the right to their own creations (writing, artistic, etc.) by copyright law. To prevent a member from deleting their own content may be an illegal 'taking' by removing control from the author/creator, and retaining it by the group owner.

I don’t think email falls under “creation” but under letters. And letters do belong to the person to whom they are written aren’t they?

Having said that, the question of a person replying to such a post and quoting part of the material originally posted would seem to fall into a gray area. Is such quotation allowed under the shared commons allowances as a reasonable use for educational discussions and common discourse?

I haven’t checked the current version but the law used to say "500 words or less" for educational, etc, purposes, and without the intention of replacing the original.

I have one group in which users are not allowed to edit or delete their messages because contentious discussions often involve what a person said or didn’t say. Erasing the record makes things even more difficult.

On another list where the archives are often searched for documents and dates, users can edit or delete the posts because we don’t want false information going into history.

The other reasons for at least the moderator being able to edit or delete is for things that were posted accidentally or in ignorance — phone numbers, addresses, personal vacation dates, etc. And possibly slanderous statements, particularly political candidates whose supporters get irate.

Sharon

jonathon,

It falls under _The Right to be Forgotten_ statutes, not GDPR.

Either way, the point is that the right to be forgotten is not absolute. As others have replied, it does not necessarily mean that one can expect to be erased from the history of a group's messages.

Shal


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On 05/07/18 08:19 PM, Shal Farley wrote:

I don't believe it has been established if or how the GDPR will apply to

It falls under _The Right to be Forgotten_ statutes, not GDPR.

jonathon

If the individual lives in Europe, you don't have that option.
If they want the data deleted, comply or be fined a fairly
significant amount - the greater of E10,000,000 or 10%
of gross worldwide revenue.

I support the notion? that a member ought to have the ability
to remove their own contributions, but until this interpretation
of the GDPR is proven in the context of group contributions
I believe statements like that to be rank fear-mongering.

Something that has not been mentioned is Copyright Law. Like you, Shal, I believe a person has the right to their own creations (writing, artistic, etc.) by copyright law. To prevent a member from deleting their own content may be an illegal 'taking' by removing control from the author/creator, and retaining it by the group owner. As such, it may be subject to legal action by the original author. If groups.io were to make the system such that a person could no longer control their own postings, that might also make groups.io subject to legal action, which is why I suspect Mark has not done that.

The internet is full of copyright abuses, taking images from different sources and sharing them, sharing written things like quotations and stories without even giving the original author credit, or sharing sound recordings. The GDPR appears to have been written to control that, and I would expect that the courts would continue to recognize copyright law.

Having said that, the question of a person replying to such a post and quoting part of the material originally posted would seem to fall into a gray area. Is such quotation allowed under the shared commons allowances as a reasonable use for educational discussions and common discourse?

I am not a lawyer, although I have been involved with copyright law for many decades. As group owners, we need to recognize the law and make reasonable efforts to protect those rights, or we may see enforcement like the GDPR enacted in the US as well.

Dano

jonathon,

Does Groups.IO honour x-no-archive headers?

Interesting question. It appears that the answer is "no", judging from a quick trial in my test group.

I know that Y!Groups did support it. In fact, even supported it as the first line of the message body. At least for text/plain, I never tried it in a text/HTML or MIME multipart.

Shal


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I don't believe it has been established if or how the GDPR will apply to online communities or specifically mailing list archives. Such contributions are qualitatively different than personal information collected privately.

Change the Group description to state that a requirement of group participation is that all messages should not be deleted and/or edited, and send a Special Notice of the policy clarification / update, and put it in the Message Footer too.

You could be sure to send a reply to the group of every message from the 'Post Deleting Member' and quote their message. Then if they delete their post, the quote of it would still be archived… It’s not ideal and a bit of a hassle.

Warn the Deleter first, that you will do that.
And that you could put them on Moderation to be sure you can do that before they delete.

Go to Admin: Settings: Message Policies and check:
Disable Editing Posts
Don't allow members to edit their own posts.
(And click on: Update Group)
I’m not sure if this will also prevent deletions or not.

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Received from toki at 7/5/2018 03:30 PM UTC:

On 05/07/18 01:59 PM, Kleibe J wrote:

... BUT I want, as moderator, to keep the messages...

If the individual lives in Europe, you don't have that option. If they want the data deleted, comply or be fined a fairly significant amount - the greater of E10,000,000 or 10% of gross worldwide revenue.

After 1 January 2020, if your user lives in California, and assuming that Google,FaceBook, and the like haven't bribed the state legislature into abolishing it, you won't have that option. However, statutory damages are only US$7,500 per occurrence.

jonathon

And the fine for unsubscribing a member who won't stop erasing his/her messages (after all of his/her messages are deleted, of course) is $0.00

Jim H

On 05/07/18 05:06 AM, Shal Farley wrote:

There is no ability to prevent a member from deleting their own content
(posts, files, photos, etc.) - except gentle persuasion. That's by design.

Does Groups.IO honour x-no-archive headers?

jonathon

On 05/07/18 01:59 PM, Kleibe J wrote:

him in this aspect BUT I want, as moderator, to keep the messages...

If the individual lives in Europe, you don't have that option. If they
want the data deleted, comply or be fined a fairly significant amount -
the greater of E10,000,000 or 10% of gross worldwide revenue.

After 1 January 2020, if your user lives in California, and assuming
that Google,FaceBook, and the like haven't bribed the state legislature
into abolishing it, you won't have that option. However, statutory
damages are only US$7,500 per occurrence.

jonathon