Our comments, in MN books, who owns our collective wisdom?

[Wotzy]

Who owns our comments?

We can request them to be removed from this forum, but not in print. In posting we give consent for them to be on MN on the web, but does that extend to publication in a book.

I am not looking for a fight, it is a serious question, who owns the copyright to our words, if they are in publication? Was there consent to have our collective words printed in a book?

To be clear, I am not threatening to flounce over it, I was just wondering what would happen about deleted posts!

I'm getting the feeling that we are being milked also.

First there was the infestation of lazy journalists, trolling for their articles.

Then there was the disgusting elitism of the Mouldies.

Now we are being pumped for our pearls of wisdom without any compensation acknowledgment.

Time for a rethink MN. You are looking greedy and selfish.

Well I think it stinks that they are not upfront about it. Some of us do no know about previous books, new books, TV series. I would presume you'd have to accept to AGREE to their terms, by a check box to tick/untick and should be given the option and shown the copyright and agreement before you access the TALK page. The statement is on the talk page but it is VERY SMALL, so only there after you have joined.

I do not like any sites that have all the important things hidden away. I do feel it is hidden and is not upfront where it should be.

Why is this bothering me? We over the years I have read some very helpful professional advice on here (ie; teachers, health carers, vets, doctors, social services, lawyers, too many to mention) and they freely give their time and help assist other members, I think to turn that into profit is a slap in the face for some.

I know MN site is abut making money, but I thought they would make enough from the advertising on the site (all the mouldies and other stuff in the press only to highlight how popular it is and therefore highlight their product/site) and the books would be their own content not ours. Silly of me.

I slept on this and I'm still not comfortable with it.

So if there are other sites that do just this, please let me know as I will avoid them too.

MN goes offline tonight (Thursday 29 Jan) for some tech stuff. So I hope they have considered this. Hopefully more transparent for new members. But I am only guessing.

It seems like an over-reaction to me (but I don't say anything anyone would pay me to repeat, I suppose!)- what we post is in the public domain anyway, and if MN can collate it into a book and keep this fabulous site going from its sales, then great! I have got a lot out of MN, and if a sentence or two from me gets in a book they derive income from, then I'd be quite happy with that.

I agree LG about subscription sites. Yes very dodgy, more burden than anything. Sign up sites which deduct a monthly sub usually from a credit card and then automatically runs and takes an amount each month and ties you into a online contract which requires a few months notification to end etc. Like gyms! Bloody things.

Will MN publish the word game? I think I may just take part in that.

Of course I can see that getting permission would not be possible after joining, which is why I think it should be clearer prior to joining.

But in the public domain you can request all your post to be removed. You can 't do that in print. It is more and more common for sites to sue 'us ' as sources of information, it's what they do with it, after it is posted that bothers me.

If it was a quick witty line or two then fine, like Mpapers round up, I'm OK with that, but where does it end?

I can see I'm going to have to log off. It's a IP issue that is universal to the web, not just MN.

I suppose the prior permission thing is tricky though...many of the funniest wisest MNers are also more sensible about their privacy than me, as evidenced by the relative lack of profile pages. Surely these same posters would be likely to tick the "safe" option No, if they were asked on joining? Then we'd only get books full of garbage from the likes of me

hmm....i see your point Wotz

i know very little about the books (the new or previous ones) and have no idea how they are set out/worded in the books

has anyone from mnhq come in to chat with you about it yet wotz?

Many moons ago, when I was posting on Netmums, and they did their book, all the posters who had posted parenting advice that they wanted to use in their book, was contacted, and shown the paragraph they wanted to use. (I know, as I was contacted several times to "ok" it)

I think that was a very honest way of doing it. Upfront, and fair.

QS, that's interesting to see how other sites request permission.

Sparkles, hi. No I am not important enough for MNhq to bother with...

Hello Wotzy and everyone - thanks for raising this - we always happy to clarify these things.

First we're not trying to hide anything - it's pretty much convention for disclaimers/copyright/ advertising notices to be the bottom links on websites I think and it's also pretty standard for sites to own copyright over your posts but we have no problem with making it more prominent on the join MN page if folk would like us to.

The reason we are doing the books is threefold:

1. To take all the brilliant and funny advice that gets posted on here every day and to sort it and put it in a compact and portable form. We think there's really something in the pooling of knowledge and experience so that you get a collective wisdom and importantly the idea that there's no one right way of doing things. If the MN books are going to have one overriding principle then it's just that: "There's more than one way to skin a cat". In short we thought we could create some fabulous and really helpful books. Books that are modern, democratic, funny and that you can be proud of owning because of all those reasons. A parenting manual you can leave on your coffee table and not be embarrassed about.

1. To spread the word about MN because we think it's useful - and folks should know about it.

1. To make some dosh. We need cash to pay for the site as we don't charge for access (and don't want to). We have lots of costs now - fancy servers, people, office, shed, Morning Papers exorbitant round up fee, not to mention sausage rolls. Yes we have advertising but we are quite restricted about what advertising we'll take and by whom - we probably turn down as much as we take. We reject a lot of companies and formats - SMA, Milupa, Nestle, Macdonalds have all waved big cheques in front of us in the last year or so - cheques that most other parenting sites would snaffle up. We did not and we're quite happy not to because merciless pursuit of profits is not what we're about (we didn't earn a salary for the first 5 or so years of MN for goodness sake) but it means that if you want a site that runs well we have to be smart about how we fund it.

Bear in mind also that not surprisingly it's tough out there in the advertising market world and probably going to get tougher - we were very much hoping that one big putative ad campaign was going to tide us over for the next little while but it's just been pulled. Blooming Marvellous has gone into administration owing us a fair bit of cash - if we are to avoid the pitfalls of being entirely reliant on advertising which is I gather very cyclical, then we need to have some other strings to our bow.

With regard to your point about it being different when your words are in a book than being on a screen well we can kind of see your point - but folks do post freely and your information is easily accessible and searchable to a huge audience via MN and also Google, a much bigger audience that the one for MN books. But I suppose there is a certain element of trust needed that we won't twist your words or shame or sensationalise. You have to make that call yourself of course about the type of people we are and if you think for one moment that we might, then you absolutely shouldn't risk posting. All I can say is that our aim has been to create a brilliant resource for parents - as MN is - based on the principle of collective, rather than expert wisdom. I really think we've achieved that and that MP has compiled the first book with complete integrity to the spirit of MN (and buy extension to it's members).

It should be out any day now in the shops, so you'll have a chance to see and hopefully feel a bit less cross/ concerned.

As said we are happy to make the copyright notice more prominent if people would be happier with that.

Best,
MNHQ

Thanks justine- I've got no problem with that, looking forward to the books

I've always been aware that MN held the copyright and never had an issue with that, as Justine said it is pretty standard (see bad Mother's Club: "The contents of the Site are protected by international copyright laws and other intellectual property rights. The owners of these rights are Bad Mothers Club Limited or other third party licensors.

All Content submitted to us will become the property of Bad Mothers Club Limited throughout the world except any portion of the material that is Personal Information or Features commissioned and paid for on a single use basis."

Interestingly a quick look at the BBC's (OK so not a commercial organisation) terms of use show a slightly different slant, as the BBC has the right to effectively treat the material as if it did own the copyright (including publishing in other media etc), but the copyright itself remains with the user:

Contributions to the BBC

1. By sharing any contribution (including any text, photographs, graphics, video or audio) with the BBC you agree to grant to the BBC, free of charge, permission to use the material in any way it wants (including modifying and adapting it for operational and editorial reasons) for BBC services in any media worldwide (including on the BBC's site accessed by international users). In certain circumstance the BBC may also share your contribution with trusted third parties*.

1. Copyright in your contribution will remain with you and this permission is not exclusive, so you can continue to use the material in any way including allowing others to use it.

I'm not cross/concerned, as long as I'm in it

Blooming marvellous has gone into administration???

That's interesting Crumpet - will look at that - seems a better way of doing it doesn't it?

Fio - the opt out caused so much work and confusion at HQ (name changes etc) last time that we decided not to. Also many people who asked to opt out, told us afterwards that they'd wished they hadn't...

Thanks Justine

Could Tech include the agreement of copyright prior to joining. I think this will be more evident and more upfront, for all members.

Of course i understand the whole purpose of any site is to make money and your ethics are far better than most other sites of this nature.

The whole purpose of the site really isn't to make money Wotzy - the whole purpose of the site is to make parents' lives easier by pooling info - we need to make some money to be able to run it, is all.

We are fortunate enough not to have shareholders or owners baying for profits. In fact we have the opposite - we have our members (and ourselves for that matter) baying for restraint!