Who owns what we post?

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[–] 52 points 2 years ago (14 children)

Nobody. It's a public forum, anyone can take what you said and use it as their own.

From technical side, instance admins, community moderators, and you have the ability to remove them.

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  • [+] 22 points 2 years ago (9 children)
  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    In very limited circumstances. While copyright applies automatically, it has to be registered with the Copyright Office for you to be able to enforce it. I doubt Lemmy posters register each of their posts with the Copyright Office.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    The World Copyright Office then?

    Oh wait, three seconds of googling suggests my posts are most likely covered when I post via my home instance in Australia.

    "You don't need to register for copyright in Australia. The moment an idea or creative concept is documented on paper or electronically it is automatically protected by copyright in Australia. Copyright protection is free and automatic under the Copyright Act 1968."

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    That's what I said.

    While copyright applies automatically

    You can't enforce it without it being registered. Courts will reject any claim that is filled with unregistered copyright.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago*

    The concept of needing to register copyright does not exist in most countries. In many countries you just have it and you can enforce it.

    Fediverse servers do exist outside of the USA so this is relevant for people who run those servers.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago

    How about you read the very first sentence of my little snippet again.

    The very first sentence.

    The sentence that says, "You don’t need to register for copyright in Australia."

    You know, the sentence that effectively describes what needs to happen if you're thinking about registering copyright in Australia.

    Perhaps in your country you have to register works for copyright so that the courts will recognise your claims of infringement. Other countries, maybe not so much.

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Might we easily make it more clear that the poster or the server owns them outright?

    Hypothetically, a corporation federates and wants to monetize my posts. Can they do this? I’m not personally fixated on ownership (which could easily be viewed as my systemic privilege), but the pathway out of this type of thought in general doesn’t seem to be yielding all power to already powerful growth-based corporations. I didn’t create the current systems, but I do acknowledge their existence.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    How would that even fundamentally make sense? Define "own". If you post the comment "lol" does that mean I shouldn't be allowed to post "lol" since you "own" it? How would simply posting something establish ownership? What if you had copied it from a different site?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Anywhere where you're a repeat customer is probably selling your data. Any service you repeatedly use could also sell your data. Unfortunately it's just a way of life these days.

    Who says that no-one is sucking up all of the Lemmy data right now and selling it to some entity? There is no way of knowing and there is no way to combat it.

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