Future of the Forum

Darat said:
The JREF will re publish most of the current forum content on the new forum. The new forum will have no rights over that content, the JREF is not transferring its licence.
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Most? What will we be missing?
 
I hereby give the James Randi Foundation permission to do anything they like with any posts I have made on this forum , including erasure and deletion from storage.
 
Darat said:
The JREF will re publish most of the current forum content on the new forum. The new forum will have no rights over that content, the JREF is not transferring its licence.
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I think this is a bit of a dodge to make it seem palatable. If the JREF doesn't own the forum, they are not "publishing" anything. The only way I can think of to make this work is if all the old content is held by JREF on JREF servers and linked to by the new forum.

For example, JREF cannot (under the current terms), send my posts to the New York Times to appear in that paper and claim JREF is "publishing" under their existing license. Copyright cannot be shuffled about quite so cavalierly and the default is toward the author (at least in the US).

Merely calling it publishing instead of transferring won't do. A publisher owns the medium on which the material appears (or pays for the privilege). This is not the case if the forum is moved, and I gather JREF actually does want to disassociate from the forum.

Again, I don't think this is going to be an issue unless someone wants to press it, but there's no point in fooling ourselves about the situation.
 
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Darat said:
It's not finalised yet but probably the historic MDC section will not be republished and there might be a few other odds and sods.
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That seems like an interesting issue by itself. I am not asking for any information that is not designed to be public here, but what is the thinking of JREF here? Do they see value in those discussions as related to their objectives? Do they see legal problems with some of those discussions? They probably are the discussions most directly related to JREF. Maybe they envision a forum restricted to that kind of thread? Is it their intention to take them down and not publish them at all.

MDC = million dollar challenge
I didn't figure it out right away and if anybody was similarly challenged I posted it here.


A completely different topic:
Has their been any discussion of a name for the new forum? I would like to have Randi in the title with a disclaimer placed nearby that the new forum is not affiliated with Randi or JREF. How about "The Randi Society"? "The Randi Forum"? Groups occasionally take the name of famous people with the goal of honoring the individual without indicating an affiliation.

Regardless of the legalities, I think Randi's wishes on this should be paramount. If he doesn't want his name used, we shouldn't.
 
marplots said:
I think this is a bit of a dodge to make it seem palatable. If the JREF doesn't own the forum, they are not "publishing" anything. The only way I can think of to make this work is if all the old content is held by JREF on JREF servers and linked to by the new forum.
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Why do you think the JREF has to own the servers where the posts are published?
 
Soapy Sam said:
I hereby give the James Randi Foundation permission to do anything they like with any posts I have made on this forum , including erasure and deletion from storage.
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I hereby give permission for anyone to republish my content except where it contains the words 'flaggon' 'Belgium' 'twaddle' or 'coop'

These words will be invoiced at $1,000,000 per appearance. You have been warned.
 
marplots said:
I think this is a bit of a dodge to make it seem palatable. If the JREF doesn't own the forum, they are not "publishing" anything. The only way I can think of to make this work is if all the old content is held by JREF on JREF servers and linked to by the new forum.

For example, JREF cannot (under the current terms), send my posts to the New York Times to appear in that paper and claim JREF is "publishing" under their existing license. Copyright cannot be shuffled about quite so cavalierly and the default is toward the author (at least in the US).

Merely calling it publishing instead of transferring won't do. A publisher owns the medium on which the material appears (or pays for the privilege). This is not the case if the forum is moved, and I gather JREF actually does want to disassociate from the forum.

Again, I don't think this is going to be an issue unless someone wants to press it, but there's no point in fooling ourselves about the situation.
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You are incorrect, if you want an analogy: The JREF is going to produce and release a hard cover book of the best of the forum (granted a very short book...), the publisher of that book is not the JREF, so the JREF is "republishing" the content it has a licence to use as it wants. The content is not being licensed to the book publisher.

That is all that is happening in this instance, it's just the technology is a server and web software rather than a printing press and paper.
 
davefoc said:
That seems like an interesting issue by itself. I am not asking for any information that is not designed to be public here, but what is the thinking of JREF here? Do they see value in those discussions as related to their objectives? Do they see legal problems with some of those discussions? They probably are the discussions most directly related to JREF. Maybe they envision a forum restricted to that kind of thread? Is it their intention to take them down and not publish them at all.

MDC = million dollar challenge
I didn't figure it out right away and if anybody was similarly challenged I posted it here.
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You would need to contact the JREF for any answers and comments.
davefoc said:
A completely different topic:
Has their been any discussion of a name for the new forum? I would like to have Randi in the title with a disclaimer placed nearby that the new forum is not affiliated with Randi or JREF. How about "The Randi Society"? "The Randi Forum"? Groups occasionally take the name of famous people with the goal of honoring the individual without indicating an affiliation.

Regardless of the legalities, I think Randi's wishes on this should be paramount. If he doesn't want his name used, we shouldn't.
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The name has already been decided by popular vote.

ETA: This is the thread you've missed davefoc: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=281306
 
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Darat said:
You are incorrect, if you want an analogy: The JREF is going to produce and release a hard cover book of the best of the forum (granted a very short book...), the publisher of that book is not the JREF, so the JREF is "republishing" the content it has a licence to use as it wants. The content is not being licensed to the book publisher.

That is all that is happening in this instance, it's just the technology is a server and web software rather than a printing press and paper.
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Analogies won't really do it - this is a well explored area of copyright law. We should ask a copyright lawyer (after letting them read the current MA).

But, to go with your analogy, JREF is not republishing. They are giving permission to republish on another forum. The term "republish" refers to a repetitive act (like a second edition), not a new endeavor. This is the part I am disputing. JREF can republish, but they cannot hand over rights to a third party, since JREF does not hold the copyright themselves.

In other words, my relationship is with JREF, not this new forum. If the new forum is a separate entity - as I think it must be to meet JREF expectations - I, as the copyright holder, have no relationship and have given no permissions to that separate entity.

The defect comes in the MA itself, because there it is missing the usual language about transfer of rights to "heirs and assignees." The purpose of this (usually included) language is to address sales and transfers - exactly what we want to do.

Here is the typical language (used for the New York Times for forum and comments- highlights mine) http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/rights/terms/terms-of-service.html#discussions (item 3.4):
3.4 You grant NYT a perpetual, nonexclusive, world-wide, royalty free, sub-licensable license to the Submissions, which includes without limitation the right for NYT or any third party it designates, to use, copy, transmit, excerpt, publish, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, create derivative works of, host, index, cache, tag, encode, modify and adapt (including without limitation the right to adapt to streaming, downloading, broadcast, mobile, digital, thumbnail, scanning or other technologies) in any form or media now known or hereinafter developed, any Submission posted by you on or to the Services or any other Web site owned by NYT, including any Submission posted on or to the Services through a third party.
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Instead, what we want to do really sounds like a kind of "having our cake and eating it too." JREF wants to be separated from the forum for (I assume) liability and other reasons. Fine, they wash their hands of us. But then, JREF is going to be named as publishing (or republishing, doesn't matter) the new forum so we can pretend to have copyright permission.
 
Pixel42 said:
Thank you.
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You're welcome. :) Seemingly important info like this has been somewhat hard to find unless you've been following all the related discussions closely, which obviously not everyone has been able to do, given how fast things have been moving.
 
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I am shocked that the MDC forum with the historic threads are going to be lost. That brief period when the MDC negotiations were publicised was our only way of knowing how it was handled, and it represented a highlight for me. In fact, I deplore that the JREF discontinued the practice. In those days I would lead other people to read the negotiations about claims similar to what they believed in themselves so that they could see that the JREF acted fairly and did not impose unreasonable terms for the tests.

When woos hear about the MDC they often claim that the tests are designed to make the paranormal effect disappear, and the MDC forum was our only source to prove otherwise. It also showed how difficult it is to get applicants to produce testable claims.
 
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