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I wanted to discuss, and get opinions, on something that doesn't sit right with me.

Since GW had announced 40k 8th and started posting updates on Warhammer Community, I posted those same updates to the 40k board on The Miniatures Page. Now, The Miniatures Page (TMP) is usually referred to as a place where old grognards go to die; most of the "40k crowd" there believe Rogue Trader to be the ultimate sci fi minis game and it's all been downhill since. With the new edition, I thought that a lot of these older gamers would be interested. So, I went about sharing the Warhammer Community updates - I would paste most of the article's content, relevant images, and attribute where the article came from with a link back to the Warhammer Community site, and then begin discussion about it. Surprisingly, a lot of the membership of TMP loved it, and would comment on it, and several gamers were talking about getting back into 40k for the first time in 25 years. So, this daily posting of mine continued fine for several weeks, until 5 days ago, when I was banned for 5 days by Bill (the editor/owner of The Miniatures Page).

Now, this came as a surprise, and the reason for this was, as indicated in a message by Bill:

"Please respect GW Copyright"

I checked with a lawyer friend of mine - not giving paid legal counsel - and he confirmed that what I was doing was not a violation of copyright.

Confused, I sent a reply back:

"I would like to know what actual copyright law was violated.
Respectfully,
Doug"

The reply was interesting:

"Specifically, you violated TMP's forum rules about respecting copyright."

Ah, okay - so it's not that I violated any copyright law, it's that a violated the TMP Forum Rules! I can understand that. I went out of town for the weekend, and didn't check back in til Monday. Honestly, being banned from TMP is nowhere near the end of the world. I was posting the 40k Community Updates as a service to TMP'ers who don't pay attention to GW, and haven't, for ten or twenty years. They're more hyphy about what's being previewed on the Perry Workbench or if Bacchus is releasing a new 6mm ancients pack. So anyways, when I got back from weekend vacation, I went ahead and checked out the TMP rules section, and was confronted by this rule:

I want to quote from a book/magazine article/website. Is there a limit to how much I can quote?
Yes. In order to respect possible copyright issues, please quote no more than three paragraphs. [COPYRIGHT RULE]

I really like such-and-such discussion. Can I copy it to my own website?
No, that would be a violation of copyright. Note that there's a copyright notice on each forum page.

Why?
The copyright notice gives TMP the ability to prevent copying of discussions. Just because someone posted a message at TMP, doesn't mean they want it repeated all over the internet.

But I wrote something profound, and I want to have it at my own website.
If it's your own post you want to copy, ask and we'll automatically give you permission to do so.

I must admit, I was a little incredulous for a moment.

First of all, it appears Bill at TMP doesn't understand Copyright law - that's obvious. You can certainly quote more than three paragraphs from a source, as long as you give attribution.

It's what follows that kinda sits with me wrong.

I went ahead and double checked. And yes, every page, every post, on TMP, is marked as "©1994-2017 Bill Armintrout".

Bill and TMP is claiming ownership on all content on TMP, including content created by other people. As long as it's posted to TMP, Bill owns it. According to him. You can ask him for permission to use your own words, and he'll "give you permission".

Now, certainly this couldn't be the case. Surely he's not specifically claiming he owns everything on TMP, words written by other people. TMP, for all of it's faults, ugly design, database bugs, etc, has some prolific and knowledgeable users, and you are pretty much guaranteed to get lengthy detailed responses from users if you asked what the 75th Regiment of Foote in 1712 wore on Parade March in July, so you can paint your Foundry regiment perfectly. Bill can't possibly be claiming he owns the research, words, text, content, of whatever anyone posts?

I had to ask him, so I sent this message:

"are you implying (or even claiming) that you own all text and content created by members of TMP?
Respectfully,
Doug"

His response was:

"Yes. We do this in order to keep others from copying the content without permission and posting it elsewhere."

Soo.... "Yes." Bill is claiming to own everything that every user posts to TMP. Now, coming full circle, this makes sense for his first rule - he can't claim ownership of the text that people are quoting from. Bill doesn't want trouble from other sources, such as GW, because Bill is claiming he owns the text of every page, including the text that one copies and sources with attribution.
His reasoning doesn't make sense to me - how is it protective to claim ownership of other users' content, when legally I could just quote from TMP with proper attribution? Unless Bill is looking to generate licensing fees for quoting TMP or somesuch? That's just weird speculation on my part, because, as it stands, I can quote TMP wherever I want as long as I provide attribution such as source link.

I'd like to get others' opinions on this.

Is this standard practice for a forum or discussion group to assert ownership over all content produced by it's members?
How would this even stand up in a court of law? It seems that Bill is being real shady by claiming that everything produced by TMP membership is, in fact, owned by him.
I'm not concerned about challenging it, nor am I particular aggrieved that I was banned for 5 days for this, ahem, "copyright violation", as I was just posting for the benefit of TMP users.
The whole copyright/ownership thing just doesn't sit right with me. What does anyone else think?

Bill is an ignoramus. He is very poor at consistently enforcing his own rules and his legal rulings/opinions are just asinine.

I seriously doubt he could afford to take actual legal action against someone for re-posting something from TMP, especially member posts where the posting member also posts his/her input to another site or gives permission for another to do so. Even if he COULD afford to challenge in court I seriously doubt he wins.

Him adding "©1994-2017 Bill Armintrout" to another person's contributions won't hold much weight. Even if he had some terms of agreement he forced users to sign, his trying to claim ownership of forum posts to the extent he would not allow those making the posts to also post the content to another forum would never hold up.

Hell, before I got banned I would post pictures of figures I painted or other stuff (TOE info/rule reviews and so on) to multiple sites to include TMP. He never attempted to enforce that silly rule. If nothing else, inconsistent enforcement will get his lunch eaten in court.

 CptJake wrote:
Bill is an ignoramus. He is very poor at consistently enforcing his own rules and his legal rulings/opinions are just asinine.

I noticed this, as he only nuked two out of the 20+ posts I had made, and didn't nuke the ones that others had made when I was busy (if I didn't post an update due to being busy, another member would then post the update, again, copying the text, relevant images, and linking to the source)

FYI, Dakka Dakka policy:

MATERIALS PROVIDED TO DAKKA DAKKA OR POSTED AT ANY DAKKA DAKKA WEB SITE

Dakka Dakka does not claim ownership of the materials you provide to Dakka Dakka (including feedback and suggestions) or post, upload, input or submit to any Dakka Dakka Web Site or its associated services (collectively "Submissions"). However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you are granting Dakka Dakka, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses including, without limitation, the rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Submission; and to publish your name in connection with your Submission.

No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Submission, as provided herein. Dakka Dakka is under no obligation to post or use any Submission you may provide and may remove any Submission at any time in Dakka Dakka's sole discretion.

By posting, uploading, inputting, providing or submitting your Submission you warrant and represent that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to your Submission as described in this section including, without limitation, all the rights necessary for you to provide, post, upload, input or submit the Submissions.

Similarly Facebook:

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings.

I've had eBay auctions pulled before because I used images from GW's website and GW complained to eBay, so that's a thing...

Cant speak to your issue but Bill has completely lost the plot. Within the past week he set up a thread accusing British gamers of being arrogant due to a personal difference of opinion with the owner of a British forum, when his userbase complained to him about the inappropriateness of his topic he started wholesale bannings. At last count some thirty people had been banned including paying subscribers, businesses that pay for advertising and other valuable (literally and figuratively) posters. This at a time that he was complaining about the 'poor health' of the wargaming industry.

beast_gts wrote:
I've had eBay auctions pulled before because I used images from GW's website and GW complained to eBay, so that's a thing...

Yep, I can see why Bill would be trying to cover his ass because he's attempting to assert copyright ownership over Games Workshop's text and images, if someone posts them. How bizarre.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ingtaer wrote:
Cant speak to your issue but Bill has completely lost the plot. Within the past week he set up a thread accusing British gamers of being arrogant due to a personal difference of opinion with the owner of a British forum, when his userbase complained to him about the inappropriateness of his topic he started wholesale bannings. At last count some thirty people had been banned including paying subscribers, businesses that pay for advertising and other valuable (literally and figuratively) posters. This at a time that he was complaining about the 'poor health' of the wargaming industry.

Dang, which subforum is this?

ingtaer wrote:
Cant speak to your issue but Bill has completely lost the plot. Within the past week he set up a thread accusing British gamers of being arrogant due to a personal difference of opinion with the owner of a British forum, when his userbase complained to him about the inappropriateness of his topic he started wholesale bannings. At last count some thirty people had been banned including paying subscribers, businesses that pay for advertising and other valuable (literally and figuratively) posters. This at a time that he was complaining about the 'poor health' of the wargaming industry.

He banned me (a paying customer since the day he started having paying customers) just because I called him out for not enforcing his own rules, suggesting he should change the rules to ones he could/would enforce as inconsistent enforcement was bad for the forum (and did so only in the special 'pay members only section'), no warning at all. Never looked back. He goes through periods where he just seems to lose all rationality. LAF covers much of the same type of stuff, Dakka covers other material, and neither are owned/run by someone with a mercurial personality.

Maybe he is bi-polar.

Maybe he is just an donkey-cave.

Either way, he seems more stable than half of Dakka-Dakka's moderators!

BA-ZING-A!

Kronk you might want to look up Bills history and especially his alter ego 'Monty Schwab' even some of dakkas more colourful personalities are more stable...

ingtaer wrote:
Kronk you might want to look up Bills history and especially his alter ego 'Monty Schwab' even some of dakkas more colourful personalities are more stable...

Does he post with both names?

What's his background, anyway? Does he have a job? Retired? Lives in mom's basement?

I don't know the guy, but he sounds like a tool.

Notice I said "sounds like" and not "Is a tool." That last one will get you a 3 day vacation.

Post images from GW website on his forum, contact GW that he is claiming copyright of those images.

Sit back and grab popcorn



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, just had a quick look at the forum - GW would have a field day with him

We try not to have threads where the person in question can't defend themselves - this goes for the DCM forum (where not all users can post) but also the site in general.

The copyright policy of TMP does look off, and the point is well made. Maybe someone could point the admin here if he'd like to discuss it further.

But the personal posts about the owner, even if valid, are simply something we can't allow here unless he wants to come and defend himself.

Thanks for understanding, any questions just PM me.