Need some advice on copyright,DMCA,legal issues etc

[calvinhobbes]

Ok, I have been thinking of starting a forum for many years now but one of the things which have held me back is the copyright and legal issues.

I know i should be contacting a lawyer for this, but I just want to know the opinion of other forum owners before I go and do that.

My questions are...

1) Has anyone of you faced a DMCA takedown notice?

2) Has it reached a level where you are scared that you might have to face a lawsuit or damages?

3) Do you think it is really safe to run a forum, and the forum owner is not liable if he takes down the infringing content immediately and has strict terms and conditions etc.

4) Do you guys run the forum under your name or have incorporated it into a corporation, which would then mean that the company is sued and not you personally.

Any comments on this would be great, or if anyone could point me towards other threads, internet articles etc.

Thanks,
Calvinhobbes

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read a few more articles ..and i have a few more questions lol

I am an Indian living in Australia ...so i have the option of registering the forum as a company in India (on parent's name) or Australia (on my name). The site is hosted in USA

5) Suppose a US firm sues me, because the site is hosted in USA...would I have to go to the USA to settle the lawsuit OR do they have to come here OR do we do video chat ?

6) If some user is in say Egypt then does the laws of Egypt apply to him ? ( i mean the law of the pharaoh's...death and burial besides the tomb of tutankhamen )

I have no idea about laws...can someone recommend a book to buy ?

Cheers
Calvinhobbes

[rd]

What is your forum about? o.O

I run a Harry Potter fan forum and it is doing very well at the moment. My forum is incorporated. I also placed a disclaimer just incase people don't know that Harry Potter is owned by Warner Brothers and J. K. Rowling.

[calvinhobbes]

I am starting 3 forums.

1) A regional community forum : General discussions ...which could obviously might have users uploading pictures of celebrities or cars or general photography and embedding videos from youtube which is quite common these days.

2) A Indian photography site : Again photos uploaded, youtube videos embedded.

3) A technology site : Same as above...photos and videos. Probably tech news articles posted by some user are taken from other site or blog.

I will take down infringing content immediately, am just worried about photos (have read bad things about Getty Images) and videos from youtube (this shouldn't be that bad in my opinion as youtube should remove the videos, but i dont want to take a chance)


Btw about incorporating a forum, is there some advice I can get there.

[rd]

I just incorporated it by placing the copyright sign and my "company" name. It's not registered but that really doesn't matter because the chances of getting sued is really small. A firm usually emails you and tells you to remove content or else face court actions. In this case you would do as they say unless you have the resources to fight them in court.

I don't think your gonna face much legal problems from your forum. All you gotta do is create a good disclaimer, terms of service, rules, and user agreement.

In all those you should make it clear that any content found in your site is the responsabilty of the poster. In other words try to pin everything on the posters(people who go against the rules). This way, you as the webmaster won't be faced with much problem(if you don't go against the law).

I'm not that sure about courts trying people in different countries. Maybe you should add what yahoo adds(in TOS and agreement), something like this:

"Any legal issues concerning this website will be handled at ....."

I hope this helped,

PS: I'm Bangladeshi-American

[calvinhobbes]

Thanks for the advice.

Yes most forum owners, whom I have asked haven't faced any serious problems. But then again it's better to be safe than lose a lot of money in lawsuits.

I just want a basic understanding of internet law and legal issues concerning running forums. I do not want to rely solely on the disclaimers and terms & conditions imposed by the forum owner on the forum users.