Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Texas

Who owns the content from forum posts?

I am interested in starting a forum site about a specific topic. I was interested in setting up automation to take posts from other forums to populate my own forum. In the process of taking the posts, I would programatically take out all references to the original forum.

Is this illegal? Am I taking any intellectual property or copywright or trademark info by doing this?

A follow-up question would be whether it matters if the forum post content is only available by signing in to the other site?

Thank you for any advice on this matter.


Asked on 8/12/04, 10:17 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Bruce Burdick Burdick Law Firm

Re: Who owns the content from forum posts?

You would be engaging in copyright infringement, unless you get permission from the site you propose to copy. There are ways to do what you seek without infringing and without permission, but you need careful legal assistance from a copyright lawyer to do it without liability.

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Answered on 8/12/04, 1:36 pm


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