Copyright Issue

Dfg

According to O RLY from Zoklet, Jeff Hunters own the forum layout copyright which does include forum name etc.

Can Jeff hunter take legal action against this site? or are we safe.


This site is basically a 1:1 clone of Totse.com.

Discuss.

mr.blunt

Even if he could, I'd be surprised if he did.

Agent 008

Jeff Hunter didn't come across as the kind of person to take legal action over such a thing.

If anything, I think he will be happy that his child lives on.



...And if he does, we find out his identity. It's a win/win!

Jack

So just to clarify we're discussing the forum section structure and the names of the forum sections?

The first thing that comes to mind is the many, many clones of Totse -- at least the text file section -- which have gone unchallenged. Allowing copyright infringement like that can constitute authorization and invalidate any future attempts to enforce the copyright.

Also, I don't think the names of forum categories are copyrightable. http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/unprotected.html mentions "Names, titles and other short phrases" as not copyrightable. Titles may be trademarked, but I doubt this was (can be?) done with forum titles, and a trademark is registered actively, not held implicitly like a copyright.

Finally, it'll never be a real problem, because we would get a cease and desist notice, or warning of impending legal action, before anything actually "happened". I've never known any place to straight up get sued out of the blue for copyright infringement.

IANAL

Dfg

Jack wrote: »

So just to clarify we're discussing the forum section structure and the names of the forum sections?

The first thing that comes to mind is the many, many clones of Totse -- at least the text file section -- which have gone unchallenged. Allowing copyright infringement like that can constitute authorization and invalidate any future attempts to enforce the copyright.

Also, I don't think the names of forum categories are copyrightable. http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/unprotected.html mentions "Names, titles and other short phrases" as not copyrightable. Titles may be trademarked, but I doubt this was (can be?) done with forum titles, and a trademark is registered actively, not held implicitly like a copyright.

Finally, it'll never be a real problem, because we would get a cease and desist notice, or warning of impending legal action, before anything actually "happened". I've never known any place to straight up get sued out of the blue for copyright infringement.

IANAL

Thanks for clearing that up. With posters like you, this place just might work.