Daniweb copyright? what's copyrighted?

[jmichae3]

I was going to avoid posting anything more until I got this question answered.
who owns what? does daniweb own my content and code I submit as answers?
daniweb has a blanket copyright statement. I would like to know what exactly is copyrighted. is it only the daniweb web service itself?

and by the way, that copyright symbol is not a proper copyright message anymore, it's just a an optional decoration. you have to use the word Copyright or it doesn't hold. you might want to change it and read up on current USA copyright rules.
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#website
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-register.html#online

[almostbob]

At the bottom of every page, terms of service, states the rules.
you dont post to a public forum if you want privacy.
facebook owns every update, twitter owns every tweet, Daniweb owns every reply.
the 'decoration' is there as a reminder to those who did not actually read the terms and conditions BEFORE they agreed to the terms and conditions at signup.

trying not to write anything that may be construed as an attack, but whooo its hard

[Ancient Dragon]

Don't post anything that is copyright by someone else without their permission. The accepted way to do that is to post a partial quote then add a link to the original article.

[Dani]

DaniWeb retains full rights to everything posted on the site. We do this for a few reasons.

1. If someone posts something in violation of our rules (spam, illegal, etc.) then it's important that the DaniWeb moderation team be able to modify it / delete it to our liking. (We have a strict policy of never modifying posts UNLESS they violate our rules.)
2. "Duplicate Content" is a big part of Google's search algorithm, and what this means is that they penalize sites in how they rank in search results if multiple sites have the same content verbatim. Therefore, if someone posts an article or tutorial on DaniWeb, we require full copyrights to that content, because we need to make sure that it doesn't get published elsewhere, therefore damaging us with the search engines. By having these rights, we are able to go after other publications that duplicate content on DaniWeb in whole or scrape our content. (If a member posts an article or tutorial on DaniWeb that already exists elsewhere, it is a rule violation and will be deleted as soon as we notice it, which is usually quite quickly.)
3. As a business entity, essentially what DaniWeb is is a database of technical knowledge and content. We would be nothing if we didn't own the content in our database, and yet were responsible for housing it.
4. DaniWeb, as a business, is a publication. Basically our business model is to publish content and make money on advertising revenue. We reserve the right to make money (and essentially do what we wish) with any content posted on the site. In the past, we used IntelliTXT (those lil double underlined green words that showed an ad when hovered over). We got a LOT of backlash from members saying that we were putting words in their mouths (rather, putitng ads in their mouths) and it turned into a whole big ordeal. We ultimately removed them because, even though they were a substantial revenue source for us, our ultimate goal is not to piss off members. But, the point being, we reserve the right to do it if we should want to.

Please keep in mind that DaniWeb is 10 years old, and existed before the explosition of social media and the popularity of the creative commons license structure, and all that other good stuff. Before user-generated-content websites were the norm, we had to come up with our own set of rules that worked for our unique usage. It's been ten years and it's been working for us so far, so I don't see any need to change anything right now.

It gets fuzzy because DaniWeb is a publisher but we also aim to be a content producer.

Also ... Almostbob, you actually own your own tweets that you post to Twitter. Twitter, however, has a license to your content which gives them full rights to do what they want with them, even though you own them. It's a little (or rather a lot) fuzzy.

I'm not ENTIRELY sure, but I'm pretty sure that you also own your text-based status updates that you publish on Facebook (not sure about photos), and they have a similar license that entitles them to do whatever they want with them.

Again, DaniWeb's copyright structure has existed long before the days of Facebook and Twitter, so we're a lil stuck in the dark ages when it comes to all that.

[jmichae3]

I asked because I have a code base which I was thinking of selling at some point, and my thought was with the blanket copyright, maybe I should not share any pieces of that code or my libraries here for solutions since that would make me unable to live on my own code in the future. I really like to share. I am sort of in transition right now. sometimes I wish we didn't have to deal with money. unfortunately, it seems to make the world go around...

[Rashakil Fol]

Therefore, if someone posts an article or tutorial on DaniWeb, we require full copyrights to that content, because we need to make sure that it doesn't get published elsewhere, therefore damaging us with the search engines. By having these rights, we are able to go after other publications that duplicate content on DaniWeb in whole or scrape our content. (If a member posts an article or tutorial on DaniWeb that already exists elsewhere, it is a rule violation and will be deleted as soon as we notice it, which is usually quite quickly.)

Transfer of exclusive copyright rights must be in writing and signed. DaniWeb does not have an exclusive license to any of my posts.

[Dani]

Transfer of exclusive copyright rights must be in writing and signed. DaniWeb does not have an exclusive license to any of my posts.

That's actually not true. By signing up with DaniWeb and providing your information to us, you accepted our terms of service and effectively entered into a contract with us, for which you are bound by its terms. A link to our terms of service are clearly labeled on every page.

In this digital age, an electronic signature can hold up in court just as well as an old-fashioned paper signature. For example, I have entered into many digital contracts over the years simply by signing up with an online service, where no actual signature was required, such as with Google AdWords, Network Solutions, GoDaddy, etc.

According to Wikipedia, electronic signatures have been in use since the 19th century: "Since well before the American Civil War began in 1861, morse code was used to send messages electronically by telegraphy. Some of these messages were agreements to terms that were intended as enforceable contracts."

The ESIGN Act, for example, has the sole purpose of ensuring that contracts entered into electronically are just as enforceable as their paper equivalents. There are many other federal laws in existance which you can read up on regarding electronic signatures. According to most of them, an electronic signature can be in the form of a "process" such as completing a sign-up form as long as there is substantial evidence to prove that the person who signed up is who they say they are (such as by confirming their email address).

I asked because I have a code base which I was thinking of selling at some point, and my thought was with the blanket copyright, maybe I should not share any pieces of that code or my libraries here for solutions since that would make me unable to live on my own code in the future.

Our terms of service are not meant to scare anyone away or discourage anyone from contributing. We are effectively just trying to protect ourselves from scraper sites copying our content, which has been a serious problem for us in the past.

As an example, there was a time a few years ago where someone set up a couple of scraper sites where they were duplicating thousands of DaniWeb threads in whole. It was brought to my attention because there were two or three members who found the site by googling their DaniWeb usernames, and were very upset about it, because they felt like they had intentions of contributing their content to DANIWEB and DaniWeb alone, and meanwhile their words were appearing on multiple other sites that they never gave authorization to.

Because DaniWeb owned the copyright to our content, we were successfully able to go after these scraper sites and have them taken down. If this weren't the case, only the two individual members who complained would have been able to each individually fight to have their individual posts potentially removed from the scraper sites, ultimately leaving a bad taste in their mouths about further contributing to DaniWeb.

[diafol]

Does it mean that a user who has received help from a contributor cannot use that bit of code within his app because it appeared on Daniweb?

Any and all information posted on DaniWeb may not be copied or used elsewhere, in any way, shape, or form, either on the Internet or in print, without prior written permission from Dani Horowitz.

So submitting a snippet on DW will ensure that I lose any rights to publish the code contained within to my own website later on, or to use it in an open-source or commercial release. That about right? Forget your actual practice of whether you currently do this or not - that's what your ToS give you the right to do? I assume it is from the ToS quote.

[Dani]

Any and all information posted on DaniWeb may not be copied or used elsewhere, in any way, shape, or form, either on the Internet or in print, without prior written permission from Dani Horowitz.

I have no issues with people using code on DaniWeb within their apps or as part of an open-source or commercial release. That's what a code snippet library is intended to do, after all.

My issue is where entire articles (such as our product reviews or lengthy tutorials) or even entire forum threads are duplicated in their entirety without giving credit back to the source. It's also an issue in the Internet Marketing forums where blackhat SEOs will come up with a paragraph or two on an SEO-related topic, and post it to 500 different forums, because they want to have a presence everywhere but don't want to take the time to come up with 500 unique somethings. It's quality content, but we are able to take action because the content is not unique to DaniWeb, and so that's one of our rules. Copying snippets of code and/or text is perfectly fine.

[diafol]

Thanks for clearing that up Dani. :)

[jenni01]

nice blog post...i like this one..

[PrimePackster]

I have no issues with people using code on DaniWeb within their apps or as part of an open-source or commercial release. That's what a code snippet library is intended to do, after all.

Is this legally binding? Meaning, what if you (Just pointing out the legal side, not meaning you would do that) decide to go after a commercially published software which uses a code snippet from daniweb?? Is it possible???(Hmm, i believe you wouldn't do such a thing, still).....

And with that, do the posters reserve any kind of rights to the posts(snippets too) that they make?? By the very noticable fact that, posts onces made cannot be deleted(I appreciate it) means that a BIG NO.

[WaltP]

No it's not legally binding. Yes it's possible.

[Rashakil Fol]

That's actually not true.

Irrelevant, actually. The vast majority of my posts, including all the interesting ones, were made before the terms of service included any such clauses.

[gerbil]

I loathe IntelliTXT... you're reading something, your right hand is absent-mindedly doodling with the mouse and POP... suddenly you're not reading any more.
Daniweb is welcome to any of my stuff. It's sorta nice having someone claim it as of some value.

[Dani]

Irrelevant, actually. The vast majority of my posts, including all the interesting ones, were made before the terms of service included any such clauses.

The TOS hasn't changed since DaniWeb was founded in 2002, with the exception of talking about cookies.

For example, here's a capture from Archive.org from 2007, with the same rules in place: http://web.archive.org/web/20070624213356/http://www.daniweb.com/forums/faq.php?faq=aup

[almostbob]

Yeah, but bosslady, you can't really expect the complainers ever read the terms they agreed to

[Dani]

Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking.