"Necessary legal rights" in that case means to own the copyright or to have had the copyright assigned in writing ..paper copy only is valid except in a very few juristictions ..

because you do not want copyright law to be this way ..in order to suit your business model..doesnt change the copyright law ..

I'm a real life publisher and author, so I know a bit about copyright and useage issues. Using material that is under copyright is certainly possible, both under law and under google TOS WITHOUT owning the copyright.

It's clear (and I mean REALLY clear) that if you have permission from the owner to use the material, you don't have to own the copyright to use the material. We license material for print and electronic use on that basis, or provide permission to use the material, but that has NO relation to who owns the copyright.

I'm unclear as to why you feel copyright ownership is required, since, in fact the huge majority of print publications operate on a permission basis. For example, if I write a book and keep the copyrights, I can sell certain rights to megapublisher company, and keep the copyrights (check out some print books to see this).

Google's policies are in line with this. The point you COULD argue is the strength of online "permissions", TOS's and implied consents, but the bottom line is you'd still probably be wrong (as evidenced by court cases).

I'm not sure if I'm missing something in your post or your thinking but this is really really basic copyright stuff (and google stuff).

Am I misunderstanding you?

Because it does say this

Website publishers may not display Google ads on web pages with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display that content

..

the link to the Google policy page is here [google.com]

compliance with "policy" is mandatory ..says google ..

Publishers participating in the AdSense program are required to adhere to the following policies. We ask that you read these policies carefully and refer to this document often. If you fail to comply with these policies, we may disable ad serving to your site and/or disable your AdSense account. While in many cases we prefer to work with publishers to achieve policy compliance, we reserve the right to disable any account at any time. If your account is disabled, you will not be eligible for further participation in the AdSense program.

Please note that we may change our policies at any time, and pursuant to our Terms and Conditions, it is your responsibility to keep up to date with and adhere to the policies posted here.

About halfway down in "policies" ..full quote

Copyrighted Material

Website publishers may not display Google ads on web pages with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display that content. Please see our DMCA policy for more information.

So if you dont have the copyright to the content that you have added your adsense code to ..you are in breach of the adsense policies and TOS ..which are not a "pick any one from two" ;-)

What part of that part of G's mandatory policies and TOS are you not getting ..

It's clear to me ..and their lawyers too ..thats in part ..whats behind their current rewrite of their policies and TOS to start agressively ( or threatening that they can ..if they want to ..if it suits them ) persuing copyright violations inrespect of adsense account terminations reasons ..it doesnt just mean DMCA ..the requirement to have permission to use ..or to be the copyright holder of the content of the pages was always there ..and if you didnt create the material yourselrf ..it must be transferred either temporarily or permanantly to you ..in writing ..on paper ..by each and every creator whose work is on the page ..including the image creators ..or you are lawyers toast ..whenever they ( googles ) or the creators feel like breakfast ..

they are expecting heavy incoming reptiles ( and some that look like judges in courts in the USA and the EU ) on their ( til now not too challenged ) copyright issues due to the myspace deal ..and other recent stuff ..they are covering their asses even more clearly ( for those who dont read all the small print and make real sure that they grasp it's implications ..and who dont go back regularly and see if it changed ..and thus if so should they adjust their activities or business model ..

like I said ..if you cant understand contracts ..you shouldnt be in business ..on the net or elsewhere ..

dumb luck doesnt last forever ..

[edited by: jatar_k at 4:39 am (utc) on Jan. 24, 2007]
[edit reason] fixed link for sidescroll [/edit]

rbacal ..I've been dealing in copyright ..in court ..from the early seventies ..as a creator ..print text and image and video and music and a whole pile of stuff ( thats where my main income has always been ..creation ..webstuff is just dusted icing on the cake ) ..copyright and the rights to use created works ( wether temporarily or permanantly or for limited print runs or usages etc etc ) can only be assigned in writing on paper ..in the USA and the EU and most other places that have at least decided officially to adhere to the Berne convention ..

"permissions" must be in writing ..on paper ..the fact that they frequently are not is neither here nor there ..and makes judges in cases involving copyright smile ..and then find against those who did not have writen permission ..on paper ..with exact details ..and has won me large amounts of money in court ..in both the UK ..and the USA ..and recently in France ..

( and before anyone asks ..no I'm not pointing anyone to the court cases ..I have good reasons ( political and otherwise ) to choose who knows who is behind this "nick" ..and all my domains have privacy ..and all are registed to my companies offshore and otherwise ..or others and not to me )

and any competent copyright lawyer will tell you that if it isnt in writing ..you dont have permission ( which is not the same as to say that you dont have "fair use" etc where applicable ) ..but if your "permission" isnt on paper ..you dont have it ..

in the eyes of google ..or the judge ..

Hmm. I guess you can't run AdSense on forums either, since the same argument would apply.

correct ..legally ..you cant ..without written permission on paper from each poster ( and however impractical you may feel that is ..and I agree with you ..that is the law )..BTW scroll down and read Bretts "copyright" text ..it's on every page here ..if he wanted to put adsense on ..he knows he couldnt ..at least not if he wanted to stay within the Google policies and TOS ..and if he tried to "take" possesion of the copyright to each posters post ..he'd be breaking the law ..so he doesnt ..Brett doesnt like being lawyer food ..

It is universally understood that if a person submits content to a dynamic web site, that content is going to be hosted there and served to other people. That is, in fact, the intention of the person submitting the content. Are you really saying that every time this occurs, millions of times per day on a million different web sites and forums, it is a violation of the law?

Yes..it is a violation of the law .."universally understood" dont mean squat to a judge in a copyright trial ..the law does ..

why aren't there millions of cases being brought to courts ..? ..lawyers are expensive ..copyright lawyers rarely if ever work on no win no fee ..they dont need to ..and they have big houses and big lifestyles to support ..

The majority of web sites are operating illegally, then, Google included.

coooorrrect! they are!

but as you'd need to be incredibly rich to go up against them in court ..and they'd tie you up for years ..and how would you eat during that time ..and how would your copyright lawyer eat unless you were as rich as Trump..or Billy G ..google and all the other big infringers of the copyright laws have til now gotten away with it ..

You'll note however that they ( google and the others ) have backed off ( on copyright and many other issues ) when they run up against governments ..because governments also have unlimited time and money ( taxpayers ) and oodles of reptiles on retainer ..hell most of them are eventually prime ministers or presidents anyway ..

edited typos

[edited by: Leosghost at 11:07 pm (utc) on Jan. 23, 2007]

You should write a book Leo ;)

and any competent copyright lawyer will tell you that if it isnt in writing ..you dont have permission

Yes, and no. That's old school print era stuff. I mentioned this earlier, but you are mixing up a number of issues. One of them is the issue of whether Internet terms of service are binding and valid, and the issue of "implied consent and permission", which has gone before the courts. These questions were not at issue in "traditional media". They are issues now, in the same way as "shrinkwrap contracts" became an issue for software.

To summarize:

1) The right to reproduce something can be conferred on someone without surrender of ownership of copyright. Anyone who has done print writing should know this, since the sale of rights is THE most important thing any print author needs to know about the business side.
2) If someone posts messages, material, etc on someone else's website, generally, such posting implies they a) consent to the TOS (that's shaky a bit), and b) they are implying permission for the material to be posted on THAT website. It does NOT imply or confer permission for the website owner to use that material in a completely different context (let's say, in printed book).

Not only are these the basic legal issues, but they are also common sense, since without these, virtually the whole world would be infringing.

You should write a book Leo

Do mine count?

what counts is the judges verdict ..

I won 3 copyright cases ( and testified in some others ) ..most recent case I won ..just last year ..

but rbacal will surely pay your legal fees if you follow his/her advice ..and lose in court ..

and I wont even try to sell you a book ..depending on your record collection or books or even printed teeshirts etc or posters you probably already bought some of my stuff ..been doing it a long time ..judges are still interpreting the law on copyright pretty much the same way they always were ..in all juristictions ..

no signed paper ..no rights to copy or use ..

even in these modern times of management consultants and all :)

Not only are these the basic legal issues, but they are also common sense, since without these, virtually the whole world would be infringing.

I ( and most prosecuting lawyers that I know ) just love those arguments that go "well everyone else is doing it so it must be right if not how could we / they / all do it and it not all fall down ..

to a prosecuting lawyers ears that is ...kerchiiing!
and defence lawyers get paid too ..even when you lose :)

no signed paper ..no rights to copy or use ..

Once again, two distinct issues. One: Whether useage requires the transfer or surrendering of copyright. The answer is no. Licensing agreements are fine. Period. Anyone who is involved in writing knows this.

Two: The validity of implied licensing, as would be the case if one uploads material to another's website. (implied consent).

Implied consent is a long standing legal term that doesn't just apply to copyright. It is recognized in countless court cases as valid. (check out your local search engine for more info).

Here's a brief quote from a Washington State University page to illustrate the concept:

...because of Implied Consent.Legal scholars argue that that anyone who posts content on the Internet expects people to visit their site.

From copylaw.com

Of course, due to the nature of such postings, there may be implied consent to copy material received from A, in any reply B makes to such communication.

From U. of Oregon

While the uploader (assuming he/she is the author) may, by uploading, give implied consent to the bulletin board operator or web site host to "display" the work..

There's tons of stuff out there.

Licensing agreements are fine.

Never said they weren't :) ..signed many over the years ..as both licensor and licensee ..

as to the rest of your "references" ..like I said it's the actual judgements that count ..not what can be found on the various university sites around the USA ..next thing you'll quote me a page from wikipedia ..or your book ..

you beleive what you wish ..I'll beleive what til now has made me money when it has gone to court ..cos what I beleive is what the judges I've met beleive too ..even in the USA ..

and you'll promise to pay the court costs of those who go with your pontifications as a consultant ..oh you won't ..I wonder why :)..even the most famous consultants of all "Anderson" actually had to admit that they had to carry responsibility for their advice ..

There's no point even replying to Leosghost. He'll just bury you in pretend-legalese. I believe he's only posting here as a prelude to suing WebmasterWorld for massive damages.

The fact that takes the time to write out these long posts and click "submit" isn't enough; WW is not legally allowed to add his comments to the thread because they don't have his notarized hardcopy transfer of copyright on file.

you didnt scroll down jomaxx ( although you did make me smile ..you're getting better ..) if you did you'd have seen

copyrights held by respective owners

..see Brett knows that he is in the clear with that ..and that "implied permission" wouldn't fly if push came to shove in court ..

so he doesnt try ..and I suspect wouldnt want to either ..and we all stay responsible for our own sins ( postings ) and the bloodstains we leave on the parapets :)

g'nite ..it's late here in old Europe ..so I'll leave you to consult amongst the faithfull ..and read each others books on law ..no unauthorised copying while I'm gone mind ;-) and someone give rbacal a rub down with a wet affidavit ..he /she looks a little stuffy and in need of the releasing of some trapped air ..pull the cork maybe?

edited to add the foregoing ..

[edited by: Leosghost at 4:00 am (utc) on Jan. 24, 2007]

There's no point even replying to Leosghost.

I was lulled into a false sense of sanity by the ghosts veteran status <grin>, but the important part is not what the ghostman thinks or says, but that others have a grounded understanding of some of these issues if they need it.

Implied consent is an absolutely CRITICAL issue re: websites, as is the validity of terms of service agreements. If it was not so, virtually every company would have to ban user contributions, including amazon's reader reviews, ebay's comments on vendors, every webmasterworld type forum, AND every newspaper that accepts letters to the editor...well you get the point.

In any event when someone suggests that transfer of copyright is required for someone to simply use material, you really have to question their experience and knowledge, and their own personal claims.

It's like someone who swears that California is on the East Coast, and claiming to be a life-long resident of California.

I got curious so did a little more research (I won't go on further about this, but so people have a resource. There is a section entitled The Implied Non-exclusive License Defense at:

[law.richmond.edu...]

which clarifies, and includes references to specific cases decided by the courts. A very few quotes:

While a copyright owner can always sell or license his or her exclusive rights to third parties, Section 204 of the Copyright Act invalidates such a transfer of ownership unless it is in writing.

leosghost is correct, but not complete...

The language of Section 101 specifically removes non-exclusive licenses from the writing requirement of Section 204.[118]

Non-exclusive licenses occur where the licenser-owner of the work permits the use of the work in a particular manner without transferring ownership of the copyright to the licensee

leosghost seems confused on this issue of the use of non-exclusive rights which is the basis for most licensing on the net, and usually embedded in TOS for major websites like yahoogroups, etc.

It doesn't need to be in writing.

Another court found a right to reproduce and sell sound recordings of musical competitions where no written agreement existed based on the theory of implied license.[130] In another case, a book author was held to have granted a non-exclusive license for another author to use portions of the book when he allowed the other author a chance to review and revise the manuscript.[131]

Some specific cases (go figure on the last one!)

If you strip away the legal jargon it's not that complicated. Posting something to another website involves an implied permission, which need not be in writing, provided the writer owns and keeps the copyright.

Ok. Chalk this one up to insomnia and quitting smoking! I'll stop now.

Well the Answer Came guys....jomaxx guess what YOU WERE RIGHT ON THE MONEY!. They should interview on CNBC. Google Adsense help stated:

'Hi,

Thanks for your interest in Google AdSense.
Regarding your question about placing your AdSense code on sites which
you will then sell, we highly discourage this practice because you will remain responsible for the site's compliance, even after it's been sold. As a solution, I encourage you to place your AdSense code on your sites and remove it once the sites are sold, as to maximize revenue while controlling the sites' content. '

The usual bantha fodder said Jabba the Hut. I had indicated that 'if' the clients were ready to buy the site from me I would set them up with hosting, G's suggestion dont keep my Ads there as then I wont have control over the content. So in short Guiness says 'BRILLIANT'.

Hope this helps the masses.
I am actually buuilding the page to jump this off by month end.

I just want to say what an ace thread, with some fantastic contributions.

But in answer to the opening thread, I still think you would be a scraper. Why not put all this effort into creating something yourself instead of monetising others hard-worked for pages. Surely it wouldn't take long for these other people to realise that they could do exactly what you have done and cut you out completely - or even mimic your business approach. All you will be achieving is a whole new set of annoying "fleas".

leosghost seems confused on this issue of the use of non-exclusive rights which is the basis for most licensing on the net,

Nope ..like I said.. I never disputed "licensing" and the use of non exclusive rights ..nor confused the issues ...non exclusive rights deals exist all over many media ..but they have to be on paper ..you cantt shrink wrap them into TOS ( and the fact that Amazon etc try to or that the strict enforement of that part of copyright legislation would make life difficult with relation to life on the net ..did not and does not abrogate those legal requirements ) but I agree life would be difficult if the requirements were applied

..as to your quote

Another court found a right to reproduce and sell sound recordings of musical competitions where no written agreement existed based on the theory of implied license.[130]

..that one mentions neither the specific case by name ..nor the juristiction ..so is hardly a specific example ..( I prefer BigDave citing case law ..he cites actual cases ..not nebulous paragraphes from other websites ..and doesnt seem to think that University site ..means must be true )..it "permission" does need to be in writing ..and specific in the details of what is being permitted ..

( actually there was a long thread last year here in which both Bigdave and I were participants where many legal cases were cited specifically to demonstrate where shrink wrapped permission non signed papar TOS arguments had been thrown out by judges )someone was attempting to use electronic permissions to get reproduction rights away from posters in a forum ..

as to this second quote

In another case, a book author was held to have granted a non-exclusive license for another author to use portions of the book when he allowed the other author a chance to review and revise the manuscript.[131]

it does not detail what contractual agreement existed between the two authors ..and mentions "implied" nowhere ..neither again does it give the specific details of who, where and in what juristiction ..

specific means just that ..If I say that a specific page of googles TOS says something ..I can point you to the page ..and you can go check it yourself ..

( funny ..I remember you claiming something on QS before ..and then telling us how although the page existed in googles TOS ..you couldnt be bothered to find it and to link to it ..and then you stopped posting in that thread when you were asked to link to it if it existed :)

Posting something to another website involves an implied permission, which need not be in writing, provided the writer owns and keeps the copyright.

an implied permission ..but permission to do what? an implied permission has to imply something specific ..it cant imply do exactly what you want with others content ..

It's also worth remebering that although this board is very USA centric ..not all of us when quoting our experiences are in the USA ..nor does US law define our laws ..and US law varies from state to state on many matters ..presumably this is why google wish for exclusively Californian law to be said to apply to their agreements ( possibly shrinkwrap electronic signatures are legal there? ) but members and readers are not all in the USA nor all in Californian juristiction ( the domain is "webmasterworld"..not "Californianwebmasters" or "Americanwebmasters" :) ..and legal questions and their interpretations and rulings by judges ( even when specific verifiable sources preferably cases are cited ) vary accordingly ..

to return to the OP

..the OP was speaking of monetarising ..via the placing of adsense on subdomains ..but which he was describing as domains ..( and the content of those subdomains to be created entirely by others ) ..that is not remotely similar to either fora ..nor reveiws ..If he includes at the sign up page for his "service" the information that the purpose of the site is to place adsense ( with an explication of adsense ) around material in these subdomains and that the participants by posting agree to those terms ..then he is not attempting to deceive or misrepresent the purpose for the creation of his site ..nor is he attempting to claim any permissions over copyrights ( wether temporary , exclusive or non exclusive ) ..and he may get away with it ..although I maintain that the permissions should be on paper ..

He also mentioned that he has bought 150 sites whose content would appear to include articles that were taken from around the net without the original creators permssions ..and appeared to think that the fact that they had link backs made that reproduction OK legally and for googles adsense to be placed on them ..

Now apparently he has contacted adsense with a variant on this story ( I suspect he has left out various details and has not simply pointed them to this and his other threads ) and although they have said no ..he thinks that they have said yes ..( hard to tell exactly what he said to them because his post is incoherent )..I also suspect that he will be back in the future with another thread at some time in the "google banned me" vein ..

BTW ..to further demonstrate the fact that the law varies depending on where the case is decide ..and that inspite of what any of us even law professors at universities in th states may think or read ..that only the judges opinion and verdict counts on the day of the hearing ..

[webmasterworld.com...]

I personally in that case agree with vincevincevince ..and the case will probabaly go to appeal and the ruling overturned ..so a different judge will be right ..and so it goes ..right up to the highest court in the juristiction that any case is heard in ..

the decision is never definitive until the last and biggest judge or panel of judges has ruled ..

IMO, albeit the fantastic contributions, the threadstarter ultimately does not want an answer to his questions because he already has them before he started the thread.

He is not interested in spending time to create a site he is passionate about or wants to do research on. He does not want to spend time searching out link partners and market his site through the appropriate channels.

He is a businessman who wants to get rich quick without putting in effort. There are many like him around. Just let him do his thing and let Google take care of it.

Leohost first I did not approach Google about the 150 sites just the other plan. And in full detail, I explained exactly.

Fish Bone how rude of you to assume who I am and what I am about. There is a difference between being a prudent businessman/woman and wanting to be an artist. You want to create a great website useful to browsers and compete with other people who want to do the same AND scrapers as well, the real scrapers that place 1 article with 3 336x250 Adsense ads on every page.

G Adsense wants to get the most out of Adsense, i.e HEAT MAP. So whats the difference between the web artist and the Web Businessman. Once wnats? and the other wants to earn. You can go quietly by making waves like Warren Buffet timelessly ploughing at ROI regardless where it is or be like Jeff Skilling a lover of energy & oil based products so much that....well you know the story.

You have your aim & I have mine, I just want to remain within the confines of G Adsense the persons I have a legally binding account with.