Dear MN -
In the light of the Daily Mail's keen approach to wholesale lifting of user's posts, I took a look around the site terms & conditions of use (had to find the link hidden in the privacy policy - couldn't find a more obvious location for it?). I see that (as is completely usual for social networks), we grant you a royalty free etc licence to reproduce our words. Slightly less usually, you do not restrict that licence to use for the purpose of running the site and the boards, but extend it to granting you all commercial rights in user content posted, without any share of income to the user or requirement to seek consent. That's a pretty outdated approach to T&Cs by the way.
subject to that non exclusive licence to you, users retain the copyright in their posts.
Can you confirm whether the recent spate of articles are under licence from MN? they've been drawing heavily on text - i don't see eg how today's article on Puzzled's wedding gift thread could constitute a fair dealing exception by the DM since the whole of their article bar a few lines is a direct lift of user's posts, together with screenshot images.
So does that mean that the DM are infringing copyright, or MN have licensed the content to them?
would appreciate some clarity as it has a material effect on what users should feel comfortable with posting on here.
ta