Dealing with problem users and copyright law

[the_bolo]

Hi,

Just curious if anyone else here has had problems with users who because of disputes on forum suddenly decide they want all their posts removed threatening legal action if you don't.

I've a current case (server in Germany), user in Canada who got into a heated debate on the forum and has done just this, they're accusing the admin of biased opinion and demand all posts be removed and claim to, actually I believe they have sough legal counsel.

Usually I wouldn't mind removing all their content as personally I think they really aren't a nice person and haven't really contributed anything worthy yet because of their tone and demands and general aggression I'm very tempted just to leave their content purely to bug them.

So would love to hear from anyone else who's had this sort of situation arise before.

Cheers

[BirdOPrey5]

In my terms of service which you must agree to to post on my forum it says by posting any content you agree to give the forum an irrevocable lifetime licence to do with it as we please basically. That's god enough in the USA- I don't know if it would fly in Europe.

[Frosty]

As far as I know, online board is a private property, and its terms of service and privacy policy aren't valid as long as the board isn't registered as an LLC; which means documents would legally exist, and users would agree by something that exists while they're registering.

I'm not a lawyer, but I guess this is just common sense. Terms of service can't be valid if they weren't checked by a lawyer or something.

[cellarius]

Since the server is in Germany, German law applies - neither BoP5's nor Frosty's version would suffice. Good news is: As long as it's not personenbezogene Information (information directly related to the person), and it does not reach the Sch?pfungsh?he (level of crativity) that is required for the Urheberrecht (German version of copyright laws) or is criminal, there's no basis for the user to ask for post removal.

You may want to have a look at:
http://www.law-vodcast.de/loschungsp...orum-mitglieds
(video in German)

All in all, asking for legal advice in the english forums as a German admin is not very advisable; anglosaxon laws in regards to privacy protection and copyright just differ too much.

[BirdOPrey5]

Is it true German forms need to provide a means for the user to self-delete their own accounts?

[cellarius]

There needs to be an easy way. Auto-delete definitely is, wether emailing the admin is, too, will depend on the judge. For German customers it would be a very necessary feature.