Legal issues

yargh wrote: As someone who knows a thing or two about copyrights and defamation laws, I'd like to point out that it is not permissible, in most western jurisdictions, to assume copyrights for works created by others, yet also disclaim liability for the content of the text.  Thus, this site's policy of assuming the copyright of all of the reviews posted by the individual reviewers, yet holding the reviewers themselves personally liable for their statements, is on unsound legal ground.

You are a toughie , Uh?

Well there is no way you could've known that legal notice was written by your trully! Small world , uh!!

I am no lawyer and I based my Legal Notices text on a similar site! I did ask to have them checked by someone that is a lawyer , but it seems to me that there is no problems to claim shared ownership of an intellectual work as far as publishing rights are concerned (but I am not 100% sure of this!), but this does not eliminate the writer for having responsablities towards his text! Hitler wrote Mein Kampf , but his editors (as far as I know , but I took this example out of the blue) never got problems for publishing it.....

As for another example:

In supermarket parking (which are the property of the owner of the building and therefore the property of the renter/leaserof the commercial entity) is a private property , they disclaim any responsability towards damage done to your car or stolen property! Is this not claiming ownership but disclaiming responsabilities?

Well, I'll first say that the "legal notices" section of any company (internet or otherwise) has two basic purposes: to intimidate users and to disclaim liability, regardless of whether or not the disclaimer is, at the time of the writing, legally permissible.  So the fact that you lifted the verbiage from another site does not necessarily mean much, in terms of its utility. 

As for what you do have printed, if "shared ownership" does not exist in practice, it cannot exist at law.  In other words, all rights inherent in the copyright cannot be transferred to a publishing entity, yet all liability retained in the author.  That takes the concept of "dual ownership" to rather perverse ends and is not permissible in most jurisdictions.

As for your analogy to the supermarket, this is entirely different.  Most people think that because "intellectual property" has the word "property" in it that it is treated by the law like "real property" (physical property). It isn't.  "Intellectual" property isn't really "property" and the laws governing it are not very similar to the laws of real property.  Anyway, in the case of the supermarket, the supermarket does not assume title to your car, so they are not claiming ownership of anything.  Nevertheless, that disclaimer is yet another example of empty verbiage.  In most western jurisdictions, the disclaimer has no legal validity if: 1) the damage to your car was caused by the intentional or negligent acts of a supermarket employee, or 2) the damage to your car was caused by the existence of a dangerous condition on the property known to exist by the supermarket, but ignored.  All that the supermarket disclaimer protects the supermarket against is liability for one car being damaged by the owner of another car.  The supermarket is disclaiming a duty to protect cars parked in its lot from damage/theft caused by other individuals unaffiliated with with the supermarket. 

Anyway, my point was not to issue some sort of challenge to the site; I just happened to read the legal notice, and thought I'd point out that if this site believes that it cannot be held liable for defamatory comments made by the individual reviewers, simply because it says it cannot, it is in error to do so, based on the law in most western jurisdictions. 

yargh wrote: Well, I'll first say that the "legal notices" section of any company (internet or otherwise) has two basic purposes: to intimidate users and to disclaim liability, regardless of whether or not the disclaimer is, at the time of the writing, legally permissible.  So the fact that you lifted the verbiage from another site does not necessarily mean much, in terms of its utility.  As for what you do have printed, if "shared ownership" does not exist in practice, it cannot exist at law.  In other words, all rights inherent in the copyright cannot be transferred to a publishing entity, yet all liability retained in the author.  That takes the concept of "dual ownership" to rather perverse ends and is not permissible in most jurisdictions. As for your analogy to the supermarket, this is entirely different.  Most people think that because "intellectual property" has the word "property" in it that it is treated by the law like "real property" (physical property). It isn't.  "Intellectual" property isn't really "property" and the laws governing it are not very similar to the laws of real property.  Anyway, in the case of the supermarket, the supermarket does not assume title to your car, so they are not claiming ownership of anything.  Nevertheless, that disclaimer is yet another example of empty verbiage.  In most western jurisdictions, the disclaimer has no legal validity if: 1) the damage to your car was caused by the intentional or negligent acts of a supermarket employee, or 2) the damage to your car was caused by the existence of a dangerous condition on the property known to exist by the supermarket, but ignored.  All that the supermarket disclaimer protects the supermarket against is liability for one car being damaged by the owner of another car.  The supermarket is disclaiming a duty to protect cars parked in its lot from damage/theft caused by other individuals unaffiliated with with the supermarket.  Anyway, my point was not to issue some sort of challenge to the site; I just happened to read the legal notice, and thought I'd point out that if this site believes that it cannot be held liable for defamatory comments made by the individual reviewers, simply because it says it cannot, it is in error to do so, based on the law in most western jurisdictions.

I certainly have not taken it as such!

I cannot speak for M@X and Ron (the owners ) but since I wrote the legal notice , I would be willing to amend it so it would be relevant!

But as you say , if all of them are are for intimidation purposes (which I did not have that in mind when I wrote them), they are then useless outside of intimidation of gullible persons , then?

Would you have any suggestions?

There's a point, according to International Copyright Laws (May slightly change in different countries), the site represents the author of the posts and the reviews rights, in other words:

1. The author of a review is technically owner of his intelectual work, and allows Prog Archives make use of them. This is a partial cesion of rights.
2. Nobody (except the author) can copy a review without express authorization of the site or make use of it on other place
3. ONLY the reviewer can use his own intellectual property on other site without consent of Prog Archives, because he's not receiving a retribution for this work.

The site is not responsible of the damages caused to a musician because there is a disclaimer (Exept if there's a participation of the site).

Even though this is not valid in all the countries I can tell for your tranquility that opinions are not considered crime or cause of civil process, except when there's an evident lie or intent to offend someone or there is an evident lie with intention to damage the figure of a person.

For example without any problem I can say X album is terrible, that's not a criime. But I can't say X artist has copied Y album by Z author if I can't prove it.

But again I can say that I believe X author is influenced by Y band without a problem, this is an opinion and for that reason not a crime.

Tonight I will check the legal disclaimers and give you my opinion on the next days.

Please remember as a lawyer I'm expert in Peruvian Laws also worked for Copyright Protection one decade ago, and even though I worked a year in USA I'm not expert in USA laws, but copyright laws change very little from country to country because this is subject to international laws.

Iván

ivan_2068 wrote: Yes Tony you're right, with a bit of luck I'm more familiar with Canadian Copyright laws than with USA (Even when both are very similar due to international conventions), because Max once asked me a question about another legal matter, so I downloaded the Canadian Copyright Act: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/39253.html#rid-39351 which I read entirely. Now  I checked the issues asked: 1.- Who owns the reviews?: As I guessed before according to an International Convention, in a case of magazines (Whicj applies here of course) both, the magazine and the author: (3) Where the author of a work was in the employment of some other person under a contract of service or apprenticeship and the work was made in the course of his employment by that person, the person by whom the author was employed shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright, This is not our case, because we're not being employed by Prog Archives.  but where the work is an article or other contribution to a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, there shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be deemed to be reserved to the author a right to restrain the publication of the work, otherwise than as part of a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical. This is our case, because the reviews are contributions, but because we published the reviews, Prog Archives can make use of them in the web site, but we can use it on other web sites, magazines, etc. (How similar are this laws in all the world!!!!) 2.- About responsability: Prog Archives is a PUBLIC OPINION FORUM, in othe words, the site doesn't make echoe of what we write andthere's even a disclaimer: Prog Archives Legal Notice: All ratings, reviews, and comments reflect the personal opinions of the individual posting the rating, review, and/or comment. The ProgArchives has no responsibility for such content and is merely providing access to such content as a service to you. Please note that all the intellectual work you supply (reviews, articles, forum posts etc.) to the ProgArchives is also your property and you will be considered responsible for the contents you submitted even in case of it being accepted scrutiny from the administrators. We therefore strongly suggest all visitors to read carefully the guidelines, rules & policies made available on the site. Not respecting those , can lead to immediate expulsion and denied further access by perpetrators. I believe any mediocre lawyer not becesarily a brilliant (and modest) as me  , can defend this utopic case, but Prog Archives should make a couple of changes in the legal notice that I can discuss privately with the responsible (Only because I don't want to give ideas to any person with bad intentions or a competitor web site). Of course tghis must be checked with a Canadian lawyer because as you know I'm not so familiar with the Canadian Civil laws and I'm not a member of that country's bar. Iván

Hi Ivàn ,

Actually we had discussed about submitting those  to you , but you were away for a while . I wrote those  in September and I must say it slipped my mind when I noticed you were back> We supposed you were on holiday.

Easy Livin/Bob actually suggested a modification about this very text you quoted , because he tought he could've been bettered, to which I readily agreed!

Actually when I lifted those guidelines from a similar site, I added the clause of shared ownership (or dual ownership) because I wanted to make sure we could use our writing for ourown needs beit on another site or a book>>> the site where I took that legal notice did not mention that and I was miffed that they did not!

However , we may want to make a change and stop forum posts being compared equivalent to reviews or articles. Forum posts are instant replies for the most cases and less thoughts are put into them than full blown articles (sometimes months in the making ) or reviews (thought out over a few hours or days)

Waddya think????

ivan_2068 wrote: Please PM me Sean, so we can talk in private, this delicate issues shouldn't be spoken on an open forum as you can imagine. Iván

Actually M@X will probably do so! If not I will dothis next Tuesday when I get back to my normal computer!