Why mumsnet is fighting the AI parasitic scrapers - Justine Roberts in i paper

[IwantToRetire]

I am sure this is on site stuff or somewhere else, but thought as it became the focus of a number of threads on FWR would post this here.

i online artice has different title to printed verion
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/mumsnet-is-standing-up-to-big-tech-why-we-launched-openai-legal-action-3559766
Also at https://archive.is/mgDXO

And press reader https://www.pressreader.com/uk/The-i-paper/20250303/282162181965597?srsltid=AfmBOooDPnIz5t9uxqFxjBmq07k7anwjWtYFpuF2l49Z9lvshACzj_xK

Haven't had time to find links to all the threads and only posting this one, not because I started it, but must be using the wrong search terms.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5057460-a-corpus-assisted-discourse-analysis-of-linguistic-transphobia-on-mumsnet?page=1

Thank you. I wonder if Aston is in progress as a separate action as well.

Good summary from Justine there.

Thought worth posting as it shows it is still an ongoing issue, which for some of us we had no reall awareness of until the Ashton incident.

Also good it had been reported in a ms newspaper

Interesting point about mumsnet being a corrective to the male-skewed content the LLMs are trained on.

But absolutely agree that you cannot just take other people' s stuff, including words. If your business model is copyright theft then it's not really a business model. I hope they all get the arses sued off them.

Oh and hi there Aston University.😘

Aston University's mumsnet scraping habit may be a bit different to the AI copyright breach though. Aston may be able to argue there is no commercial benefit to them, whereas the AI firms are very clearly profit driven which is taken into account in copyright infringement cases I believe.

I think the Aston data holding facility/company was financed by a private company with shareholders, some American I believe? Can anyone remember? Someone on the other thread investigated. Apologies if I am wrong but I did think there was a commercial element to it.

The argument is a bit pot/kettle TBH.

Everything you post on an internet forum (so MN here) is owned by the website. This post will have the copyright owned by MN, not by me the original author. I have no say in how this post is used in the future.

They are complaining that it is unfair that AI companies are profiteering off of their content, when in fact the content is user-generated, but MN own the copyright.

The business model of MN (as well as the advertising) is on the ownership of the copyright of the user-generated content and AI offers them an opportunity to sell that content.

I have no problem if AI want to use this post, but as soon as I click Post, I no longer own the copyright, MN does. I have no control over the use of this data, and now MN are claiming that they have no control over it.

From what I understand we agree in the ts and Cs to assign copyright to mumsnet. But AI does not ask mumsnet for consent to use this copyright. That's the problem, they did not seek consent to take content from mumsnet.

Mumsnet does not own the copyright to user submissions. Mumsnet instead claims a perpetual non-revocable license to the content.

The Terms of Use also says this:

”You also grant to us, in our capacity as non-exclusive licensee, the right to sue; bring proceedings, claims or actions; obtain relief (and retain all damages, accounts of profits, costs and other sums recovered) in respect of any suspected third party infringements of the intellectual property rights in the User Content which are directly connected to the rights granted to us under this clause. You agree that we will have sole conduct of any such actions and sole discretion to negotiate and settle them. You also agree to (at our cost) provide us with reasonable, non-financial assistance if we ask you to, in relation to any such actions (for example, by signing additional documents to give full effect to this clause).”

(This is the first time I have read the Terms of Use. I reject the terms.)

Mumsnet does not own the copyright to user submissions

Exactly. This came up in another context when MN gave into pressure and tried to sideline discussion about sex and gender as though it was not part of feminism. They then took it upon themselves to start to editorialise by claiming the right to move threads (unfortunately this was sometimes at the instigation of other users who seemed to want to go along with the notion that some how sex base rights wasn't "feminist".

Without rehasing that arguement and why some posters were happy to be divided, what became clear is that the content is the copyright of whoever posted it. And as such have the right to say in which context it should appear. And that as MN has no right over, they could not manipulate it to use to promote something they want.

And just to finish off thread, the split has been bad, not because of the frilly silly chat concept, but because it is now too easy for those newer to FWR to think they are just part of a single issue forum, and do see the issue of sex based rights as being a fundamental basis of the need for feminism.

That's interesting and thanks for putting me right on the copyright status.

I still believe though, whoever the ownership of the words, AI has no right to just take them. At least we get a benefit from mumsnet which is a trade off for losing some degree of control whereas who knows to what use the AI will be put.

I remember posting about this a while back in relation to the attempt to editorialise.

And I am sure that somewhere, if only I could find it, I have the link to the website it came from.

But on balance yes to benefits of mumsnet.

This isn't that clear put posted on a copyrightaid forum!

The statement you quote from the website owners is not an assignment of copyright, which under UK law needs to be in the form of a signed deed executed by the copyright owner (see section 90(3) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988). The only exception to this rule is where an employee creates a work in the course of his/her employment, and in such cases the employer becomes the first owner of the copyright in that work unless some contractual provision reverses this situation (see section s11(2)). Obviously that does not apply to contributions to a forum. Therefore the authors of the original posts retain the copyright in what they have written.

(Slight tangent but I did know that about anything you write as part of your employment as a group I was part of got in a total muddle about this when the work was done by volunteer. Cant remember how it was resolved.)