Discussion Forum Content

Content is a valuable commodity in associations, and is growing in importance.  A key source of content can be content created by members via e-mail or web-based discussion forums. 

In many association discussion forums, members might respond to questions by describing their experiences and conveying their knowledge.  Who owns that content?  Can the association use the content?  Can members forward the response to others not participating in the discussion forum? Can it be posted to another discussion forum elsewhere?  

Generally, associations and non-profits are well advised to ensure that they have the right to use the content in archives, and for other purposes.  Also, the value of the discussion forum will be reduced if participating members cannot use the information.  Therefore, it is essential to cover this issue in your discussion forum rules to ensure compliance with copyright laws while increasing access to content.

While each organization’s needs may differ, this sample rule can be a good starting point.

Copyright.  As a condition of contributing to forum discussions, submissions to ABCD are deemed submitted to the public domain unless the participant includes a copyright notice at the end of the submission.  Contributors to a ABCD forum discussion, including without limitation those where a copyright notice is included, thereby grant a world-wide perpetual license to ABCD to re-publish the submission on its web site archive system, in any other Internet-based or printed copyrighted work, and in any copyrighted print publication or publications, without further permission of the creator and/or copyright holder of the work.

If in doubt about the copyright issues in your organization, consult legal counsel.

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