Who owns what we post?
Well, let’s see what the ToS says. sh.itjust.works here.
Legal:
TBD
Oh.
They were too busy getting shit to just work.
im to lazy to check my instance
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.
Removed by mod
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.
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.”
The same applies here in NZ (although my instance is currently residing in AU)
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.
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.
That’s only US courts. Other countries don’t even have a procedure for registering copyrights.
To add to this, can we “disown” what we post? If it can be used against me but isn’t “mine”, it just seems like I’m always getting the short end of the stick.
As far as any legal liability, no, unless you’re successfully anonymous (VPN, tor, etc)
So shouldn’t some of the legal repercussions be shared with whomever “owns” what I post?
Generally you own what you post, but you have given a license to the site to display and use it. In the US, social media sites are protected by something called Section 230. This allows sites to display user-generated content without being liable for legal issues related to it, as long as they do a decent job of trying to moderate clearly illegal content.
Makes a lot of sense, thanks
