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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To ask Mumsnet if Daily Mail are stealing our posts...

39 replies

StreamsFullOfStars · 26/06/2019 09:25

...or are you selling them to DM?

OP posts:
Lumene · 26/06/2019 09:26

Why would the DM pay for posts available for nothing on a public forum?

StreamsFullOfStars · 26/06/2019 09:29

Why would the DM pay for posts available for nothing on a public forum?

Because they are copyrighted. Mumsnet own the copyright and can sell them to who they choose.

OP posts:
Crustaceans · 26/06/2019 09:30

If you’d done a search you’d find tens of threads about this already.

A summary:

  1. It’s a public forum - anyone can report on its contents.
  2. Don’t post anything online that you would object to people you know seeing or knowing. This one is true of the entire internet. Always assume it’s public, identifiable and never going away.
  3. It’s not just the daily mail. Other papers are at it too (I’m looking at you in particular, the guardian).
Crustaceans · 26/06/2019 09:32
  1. You can quote and discuss copyrighted material (with attribution).
  2. There is nothing MN can (or will) do about it.
FlibbertyGiblets · 26/06/2019 09:33

No it isn't stealing.
Yes it is allowed.
No payments to MN.

StreamsFullOfStars · 26/06/2019 09:34

It’s a public forum - anyone can report on its contents.

Fair use of copyright material only covers current affairs, reviews etc. It doesn't cover just lifting whole threads to republish elsewhere.

OP posts:
MyOpinionIsValid · 26/06/2019 09:36

Mumsnet own the copyright

No they dont! Peopel retain the rights to their own whitterings. I wish people wouldnt perpetuate myths all the time

www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

Normally the individual or collective who authored the work will exclusively own the work and is referred to as the ‘first owner of copyright’ under the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. However, if a work is produced as part of employment then the first owner will normally be the company that is the employer of the individual who created the work.

From a Copyright FAQ forum:

by CopyrightAid » Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:09 pm

Oh. Now this really is a hot potato! A very good question.

My understanding is this.

On the one hand:
Copyright is the automatic right of the creator from the point that the first 'recorded' the work in a tangible manner. In this case, from the point you type it in on the keyboard. So this would mean that as the 'creator' of the post, you are the copyright owner.

However....

In posting on the forum, you will have accepted the terms that this type of publication implies. In posting you are accepting that your content will be published by the site owner, and also that the site owner has the right to edit or delete your post as he sees fit.

In short my understanding is that while you are the copyright owner, by posting on the forum you have already given the site owner permission to use your work.

Of course, there is no harm in asking for it's removal, but I cannot see what action you could take if they refuse as by implication you have already given them permission to use your work.

FlibbertyGiblets · 26/06/2019 09:36

Whole threads are not republished. A link provided and excerpts printed. Don't think I'm saying this approvingly btw.

Crustaceans · 26/06/2019 09:40

IFair use of copyright material only covers current affairs, reviews etc.*

What people are talking about online qualifies as ‘current affairs’. It’s reporting on societal attitudes etc.

Yes, it’s crap and lazy journalism. But “look at what (mostly British) ‘mums’ (as that’s how it’s usually framed) think about X” is still reporting on something.

Crustaceans · 26/06/2019 09:41

Honestly, there is no point in getting irate about stuff like this.

If you don’t want something to potentially feature in the press, don’t post it online. It’s that simple.

MN is not a private chat with your friends.

StreamsFullOfStars · 26/06/2019 09:42

by posting on the forum you have already given the site owner permission to use your work

Yes - so that means Mumsnet can sell it to Daily Mail if they choose to. If Mumsnet didn't give permission then apart from limited 'fair use' exceptions, DM would be in breach of copyright.

But my question to Mumsnet is simply are you receiving a fee for allowing DM to use our posts?

OP posts:
StreamsFullOfStars · 26/06/2019 09:44

If you don’t want something to potentially feature in the press, don’t post it online. It’s that simple.

True but if Mumsnet is complicit in posts appearing in the Daily Mail and receiving a fee for it, should they not be more open about this?

OP posts:
onalongsabbatical · 26/06/2019 09:47

What on earth makes you think the DM is paying MN? Evidence?

araiwa · 26/06/2019 09:47

I wish there was a faq stickied about this oft repeated nonsense

joyfullittlehippo · 26/06/2019 09:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

honeygirlz · 26/06/2019 09:47

Yes - so that means Mumsnet can sell it to Daily Mail if they choose to. If Mumsnet didn't give permission then apart from limited 'fair use' exceptions, DM would be in breach of copyright.

Are you guessing or do you have a source to back this up?

ScaryBunnyPainting · 26/06/2019 09:48

Why would they sell it if the newspapers can just lift snippets for free?

Crustaceans · 26/06/2019 09:49

They’re not receiving a fee. They’ve clarified this plenty of times. Partly this is because they’re just not entitled to one.

Your understanding of what counts as ‘fair use’ is much more limited than the reality. Whatever you post on here is fair game to reporters (so long as they acknowledge their sources).

Bitching and moaning about it doesn’t change anything. If you object to it that much, then the only thing you can do is to stop posting things online.

It’s not just MN that gets reported on either. Things people do publicly on twitter, instagram, Reddit, or any other bloody website you can think of get reported on all the time. The activities of revelry users (and the site’s response to them) are able to make the papers these days.

ssd · 26/06/2019 09:49

Mums net can do what they like, why should they be answerable to everyone daft enough to post private details if their life online?
Post here for advice by all means, but have the sense to change a few details so your nearest and dearest don't know you're discussing them.

ErrolTheDragon · 26/06/2019 09:51

YABU, because the question has been asked (and answered, in the negative) many times before. And if you'd really wanted a serious answer rather than a silly attempt at shit-stirring, you'd have posted in Site Stuff not AIBU.

MarshaBradyo · 26/06/2019 09:53

I doubt they pay, more that mn uses them for PR

Crustaceans · 26/06/2019 09:54

Have you read the T&C for MN, OP? You should have, because you won’t like what you’ve signed up to by registering and posting on here.

For example:

Submissions to Mumsnet: We may now or in the future permit users to post, upload, transmit through, or otherwise make available on the site (collectively, "submit") messages, recipes, text, illustrations, files, images, graphics, photos, comments, sounds, music, videos, information, content, and/or other materials ("User Content"). We have the right to publish, edit or reject any User Content that you send us either via email, via the site or in writing via post for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without payment to you - unless we have specifically agreed otherwise in writing prior to submission.

By submitting User Content to us, simultaneously with such posting you automatically grant to us a worldwide, fully-paid, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, fully sublicensable, and transferable right and license to use, record, sell, lease, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works based upon (including, without limitation, translations), publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, publish and otherwise exploit the User Content (in whole or in part) as Mumsnet, in its sole discretion, deems appropriate. We may exercise this grant in any format, media or technology now known or later developed for the full term of any copyright that may exist in such User Content.

MN don’t sell it to the press (because the press can report on it for free). But they could if they wanted to.

If you don’t like that: don’t post.

And don’t complain about it. MN have been very clear about this - repeatedly.

sneakypinky · 26/06/2019 09:57

🍿

bruffin · 26/06/2019 09:57

Why aer you just saying the DM? All newspapers lift from here, not just the DM.
Nothing more pathetic than those posters who change their name to antiDM names or put that those ridiculous caveats on their posts

Lumene · 26/06/2019 09:59

Because they are copyrighted. Mumsnet own the copyright and can sell them to who they choose.

Journalists quote and describe online discussions all the time. There is no copyright law that would prevent this. Public comments will be reported if newsworthy, this is zero to do with anyone at MN.

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