I own a board where a few of the members would link back to a news clip off of youtube to make their point. Is this a violation of copyright laws? If so, how is it that the youtube member was able to post the news clip on the youtube site in the 1st place? Thanks!
I think, in terms of your site, as long as it's just a link back to another site, you're probably not infringing copyright since you're not reproducing information on your page. As for the Youtube content, it could very well be infringing copyright. I'm not fully aware of news copyright issues but I don't see them being any different to other types of writing or visual production, in that they would still be subject to copyright. I think everyone is well aware that there are huge copyright issues on Youtube and that many people post video without appreciating that they are possibly infringing someone else's rights. Just look at some of the big film studios taking legal action over it in the last few years. Some other companies will see it as more of an irritation than something they need to address directly, while others again will be happy with the free marketing. Just make sure that people are not reproducing swathes of text or video content on your pages from other sites. Read up on copyright and 'fair use', which is actually a bit a of a grey area.
Yeah as long as your linking the source and giving credit of the content to them, you should be fine.
That is actually completely untrue. Linking to a source and giving credit in no way, shape, or form gets someone off the hook for copyright infringement. There are several things that have to be considered in the OP's individual case: 1. Are they only linking to something off-site versus having the clips on your own site? 2. What exactly do you mean by "clips?" Are you talking about a 30-second clip, or half of a news program? 3. Why are they being posted / linked to? For commentary? Just to share it? etc. I'm not saying to answer those here, but simply that those all come into play when determining if something like this would be a copyright infringement or fair use.
Exactly JHM, something I noticed here as well, a lot of people think that just because you link to a site and give them credit you are free from copyright issues. WRONG. However, the easiest way to go about things is to contact all the news services that are most used, and see if they mind it. If they don't want them doing it, then don't let your members do it. But make sure in your forum ToS you say you do not allow any copyrighted materials to be placed on your forum. And somewhere later on that you reserve the right to do things such as modify a post, delete it, even ban a member because of breaking the ToS, however its a manual process so some things may get by. Look around for forum ToS and try to cover yourself, but make sure you let your members know they can't violate copyright laws, unless you want to be held accountable as well if they do it. Also, most host's don't allow copyright violations and they can terminate your account without notice if its in their ToS. But easiest thing to do is to contact the news agencies, some may not care at all.