Guidelines for use of Group Forums
Introduction
- These guidelines are intended for COSA members in using the Group Forums feature of www.cosa.org.au.
- This document is designed to provide members with guidance on illegal and otherwise inappropriate or offensive material.
- This document does not provide a comprehensive legal review of the topics outlined below.
1. Key issues
The site will be moderated to ensure the following key issues don’t occur.
(a) Defamation. Discussed in more detail below. Any defamatory material will be removed.
(b) Copyright. Discussed in more detail below. Only original work by a person participating in a forum should be submitted.
(c) Privacy. Discussed in more detail below. Members should ensure that other members’ privacy is not compromised.
(d) Offensive material. Discussed in more detail below. Any offensive material will be removed.
1.2 Defamation
The legal regime for defamation is not uniform across Australia, so the following should be taken as a general guide only.
(a) What is defamation?
In the context of forums, defamation will be in the form of posts or uploads that attempt (for example) to:
- lower the reputation of someone in the eyes of the general public; or
- cause others to shun or avoid that person; or
- expose the person to hatred, contempt or ridicule.
The posts may include text, or uploads/links to a compromising picture or other matter.
Material may be defamatory whether it is intended to be funny or is serious. The material will still be defamatory even if it is prefaced by “it is alleged that” or “rumour has it that”. It does not matter that the user did not intend to defame someone.
The defamatory imputations may arise:
- directly from the words;
- from reading between the lines; and
- from the words/material in conjunction with facts extrinsic to the matter (facts which are generally known).
Any material that seeks to lower someone’s reputation in the eyes of the general public will be removed.
(b) How is someone likely to be defamed?
Posts or uploads that make negative comments as statements of fact (and not opinion) relating to:
- a persons skill;
- the private lives of persons;
- the private lives of other users of the message boards
are the comments most likely to be defamatory. Also:
1.3 Copyright
(a) What is copyright?
Copyright is a right that comes into existence automatically when a person creates an original “work”. Copyright gives the person creating the work the exclusive right to exploit their work, whether through the sale, hire, publishing, reproduction or other distribution of the work. The person who created the work has the right to control distribution of the work, prevent the unauthorised exploitation of the work and the right to take legal action to prevent such unauthorised exploitation.
(b) What is covered by copyright?
The types of works that copyright can protect include:
• Original literary works eg. novels, computer programs, lyrics for songs, articles in newspapers;
• Original artistic works eg. paintings, photographs, sheet music, technical drawings, maps and logos;
• Sound recordings on any medium (including MP3 format);
• Films, including videos, DVD’s and digital copies.
All the above can be protected by copyright regardless of their format (this includes the internet).
Protection does not only cover the entire work but also applies to parts or segments of the work.
Protection generally lasts for 70 years after the death of the creator of the work. So, for example, just because an article has been published in a newspaper or a CD may be bought in the shops, does not mean that it is no longer protected by copyright.
(c) How is copyright likely to be infringed using the forum?
Those posting on the forum may decide to include in their message all of or part of a work that is protected by copyright. This may be done by, for example, cutting and pasting the text of a newspaper article or a picture into the message.
Alternatively, a forum user may provide a link to a work that is protected by copyright, giving users the opportunity to download a copy of the work.
(d) Examples of breaches
The following are examples of how a forum user might breach or facilitate the breach of copyright:
• Copying the text of a newspaper or magazine article into the message;
• Copying a photograph, map or logo into their message;
• Providing a link within their message for other users to access and/or download music, video or a computer program.
Any potential breaches will be removed from the forum.
In particular, any message containing the word “download” will be reviewed for potential infringement.
(e) Exceptions to the above
For the purposes of moderation there are two exceptions which may be permitted:
• the posting on the forum of a work that has been created by the forum user. For example, an article or excerpt created by a user that does not incorporate any material created by anyone else (bearing in mind that any offensive material should not be posted); and
• where a user takes only a small quote from, for example, a newspaper article. For example, it would not be a breach of copyright for a message board user to include in their message the following: The Sydney Morning Herald said yesterday that “cancer would be in decline by 2020.” It would, however, be a breach of copyright if the message board user copied the whole of the article.
1.4 Privacy
(a) What is covered by COSA’s privacy obligations
Please refer to COSA’s privacy policy.
(b) How might privacy be infringed using the forum?
For members to publish personal information about other people that enables someone to identify that other person. This includes posting a full name with an address or telephone number.
(c) Exceptions to the above
There will be no issues with users publishing their own email address.
1.5 Other issues
(a) What is prohibited by the terms and conditions
The terms and conditions contain a brief overview of the material that should not be posted. Such material is summarised below.
Examples of the types of breaches to look out for
(i) Offensive language, including:
- obscene or explicit language;
- language that discriminates – whether as to sex, race, religion, ethnicity, age or disability;
- language that intimidates, threatens or harasses other users;
- language that insults, mocks or antagonises other users – including name calling.
(ii) Pornographic material, including:
- any links to other sites containing pornographic material.
(iii) Material designed to bypass the language censors;
(iv) Other advertisements:
- advertising for any personal or commercial uses – including ‘for sale’ type advertising, chain letters, advertisements for other message boards.
- Users may provide links to other sites (relevant to cancer) that may be of interest to users (provided that they do not provide links to download copyright protected material – see above).
(v) Topics unrelated to cancer
(vi) General disruption techniques, including;
- blank postings;
- hard to read/over-sized text;
- forcing a user to scroll horizontally to read text;
- flooding a message board with multiple posts.