phpBB.com

The user agreed to the agreement that that the board owner owns the posts and remains the right to do what he wants with them (delete them, leave them ect.)

Therefore, if he had a a legal battle and would, 90% of the time win.

Its like signing a contract. You are agreeing to it and it cannot be broken. That is the whole point of them.

If a user knows the agreement of the board is that the owner owns all content on the board and can do what (s)he wants with it but then post. Then want that post deleted. They have to request, not order the posts to be deleted from the site owner.

Its like agreeing to a website hosting TOS. If it says you cant host image hosting scripts. You can't. Even if the country's law says that hosting image hosting scripts on servers is legal.

"The user agreed to the agreement"

An agreement is not a legal contract . For something to be a legal contract in a lot of countrys one would have to proove ones identity and sign it and one would also have to be informed in a legaly binding form ( explenation ) that one is entering a contract . And legal contracts , being legal in the way that they are written , doesnt mean that they override laws . Laws come before rules / terms of service / agreements or contracts . .

"Therefore, if he had a a legal battle and would, 90% of the time win. "

Thats your opinion and courts , judges and solictors often make mincemeat out of people who have the audacity in their opinion to argue with them about the law , and also with people who say things like "in 90 % of the time" when they can not back that up with proof . And before anyone says that one can proove something think about the fact that one might think one can prove something but that that doesnt mean that a judge will acept it as proof . He decides whats proof .

"Its like signing a contract."

Being in your opinion like a contract doesnt mean that it is a contract and if you tried to say that in court the court ( the judge ) and / or the prosecuter could , probably would , say saying "like signing a contract" means that you know yourself that it isnt a contract .

"and it cannot be broken"

Should not not can not . Look at the press and see how often there are court cases for breach of contract . Then look at the amount of cases that are won or lost because the courts dont consider a contract to be legaly binding or broken .

"If a user knows the agreement of the board is that the owner owns all content on the board and can do what (s)he wants with it but then post. Then want that post deleted. They have to request, not order the posts to be deleted from the site owner."

Again agreements arent contracts . One sends a registered letter to the owner of the site and politely asks him to remove the posts in a reasonable amount of time . In holland , germany and to my knowledge in the UK the amount of reasonable time is at the most a few working days . That means that depending on the amount of work to be done it doesnt have to be completed in a few days but that the posts have to be started to be deleted within a few days . The judge decides what a reasonable amount of time is and if all posts or some of them have to be deleted .

"Its like agreeing to a website hosting TOS. If it says you cant host image hosting scripts. You can't. Even if the country's law says that hosting image hosting scripts on servers is legal."

If the owner of the web site says you cant host image hosting scripts you either cant because he has made it technicaly impossible or because he deletes them or your acount . Then enforceing your rights and the laws would depend on if it was a civil case or criminal prosecution . In civil cases things can get very expensive and companys mostly have more money and better = more expensive legal representation . In civil cases you dont get legal aid you have to pay yourself and / or the person who looses has to pay . There are some countrys where one has , or at least had , to prove that one has the money before the case gets to court . Haveing rights and getting those rights are two very different things and often depend on money and time . By time i mean that court cases can take ages to actualy get to court and that there are a lot of time wasteing blocking tactics an oponent can use and then there are apeals . Plus the fact that hosting such scripts is legal has nothing to do with haveing the right to force a site to allow you to host them .



People ...... life is not a cheep B movie where one can go into courts and play perry mason and win just because one decides that one is right . Sometimes yes but mostly no . Have any of you had any experience of courts and of getting your rights , defending yourself or prosecuteing anyone ?

If you don't want to hassle with deleting all of the guy's posts (or if you want to discourage such requests in the future), just give him permission to delete his own posts and let him do it. You made the board available to him to make his posts, and you are giving him opportunity to remove the posts he wants to remove. That's fair enough.

And for the record, website ToSs can be legally enforceable in the US. A woman was recently convicted for violating MySpace's ToS.

The jury did, however, find her guilty of three misdemeanor counts of violating the terms of service with MySpace.

[Edit] 'cause the case was overturned. For more on the enforceability of ToSs see here: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/inter ... rvice1.htm

Kim_Possible wrote:And for the record, website ToSs are legally enforceable in the US. A woman right now is in jail for violating MySpace's ToS.

The jury did, however, find her guilty of three misdemeanor counts of violating the terms of service with MySpace.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/ju ... turns-lori

I am not argueing against you or the report but it needs putting into perspective .

1 - it was in november 2008 and in the US. Have there been any court desissions or changes in the laws in the US relevant to TOS since then ?
2 - Does a US court have the jurisdiction in this case ?
3 - It was a case of a teenager = under age being harrased by someone , an adult , and then comitting suicide . That has nothing to do with someone wanting to delete posts .
4 - It was a federal prosecution , a criminal case in a criminal court , not a civil court .
5 - Was the solicitor a good one or not ?
6 - To realy make a judgement about the case and if it would / could aply in this case we would have to know more about the actual prosecution case and if she was charged with misdemeanors or with felonys in the charges she was found guilty of ? . Would a criminal court with a federal jury acept a case of a missdemenor/s if it was made without the felony charges ? There is also the point that often when a prosecuter wants to get someone found guilty instead of bringing one charge they try to bring several because then there is more chance of the person being found guilty in one of them . If she had been brought to court only charged with misdemenors would she have been found guilty ?
7 - It also doesnt say anything about if there was an apeal and if there was how that ended .



Some other things to think about ----->

"Some legal experts and civil liberties groups said a felony conviction would mean that millions of people who violate the terms of service of the Web sites they visit could become criminally liable. Experts also said that if violating such terms is a crime, then the sites that write the agreements essentially could function as lawmakers or prosecutors".

One set of federal prosecuters "decided that the case should be declined for federal prosecution,"


A very sad case . In my opinion the prosecution messed their case up . I cant believe that in the US there are no laws about "using fraudulent registration information, obtaining personal information about juvenile members, and using the service to harass, abuse or harm others. " especialy minors and that they had to use the terms of service angle . That would to me mean that there are no laws about useing false identitys or harrasment in the US .


I`m tired and i dont have much knowledge of US laws or courts so maybe some of that is crap . If it is please put me / things right .

.

Unknown Bliss wrote: .*.*.*.*.*.* Snipped *.*.*.*.*.*.
Its like agreeing to a website hosting TOS. If it says you cant host image hosting scripts. You can't. Even if the country's law says that hosting image hosting scripts on servers is legal.

This is not necessarily true. it depends upon how the civil code is written. In most nations, state, district, county, city, local, and corporate statutes cannot circumvent the code as written one tier higher.

I would be very happy to be corrected, if you can point me to a page that categorically states that corporate laws and rules may circumvent city, state, or national statutes.

Regarding copyright statutes, though, we find that the relevant authority is at the national/federal level.

In essence, corporate rules and regulations cannot violate national/federal law.

What you have written seems to imply that a corporation can ignore the law of the land. Are you sure you meant that? Am I misunderstanding what you wrote?

Thank you.

EDIT: I confess that I "snipped" too much. What is shown in the quote box needs to be taken into the context of the earlier points made by the poster. Sorry for my mistake.

.

"f you don't want to hassle with deleting all of the guy's posts (or if you want to discourage such requests in the future), just give him permission to delete his own posts and let him do it. You made the board available to him to make his posts, and you are giving him opportunity to remove the posts he wants to remove. That's fair enough."

I agree with that and thats what i would want to do .

Then the question arises by delete the posts does that mean he can delete the whole post or just the content with PHPBB ? If possible i would allow the content to be deleted and if the person wanted the nickname and his personal details BUT i would want that there is a space where his posts are deleted so that i could write something like this in it " The user asked for his post to be deleted . The general meaning of the post was this .............. " to stop the topic being ruined where nesecery .

The member has his rights but so does the site owner and so do the other people who have posted in the topic .

None of you should quit your day jobs.

"None of you should quit your day jobs."

I had a good laugh at that ....... but it can be taken in more than one way .......... i`m a bit thick and thick skined so could you please explain that ? LOL .

PS - As i have a chronic w-rk alergy i dont have a j-b or w-rk . I decided when i was young ( 5 ) that others suffer and feel bad if they didnt have a j-b so i decided to sacrefice my whole life for them ( you all ) and not w-rk so that others wouldent be unempl-ed . I couldnt live with my conscience if i took away someones chance of w-rking .

It means don't try making a living as legal analysts.

Please give us yours .

Give Steve's what?
Qualifications? He's been a qualified lawyer for over 36 years...

I have tried to be respectfull in what i have said and am trying to do that now . Especialy as i have great respect for stevemaury after watching this site and his posts for nearly a year .

I asked stevemaury to give us his legal analysis not his qualifications as from his reply he is implying that he knows better than the things that have been said in this topic so far and that they are not right .

What i have said is right . I said it because my legal experience comes from fighting and defending cases since 1972 in the UK and germany . I have won more cases than i have lost .. Those cases being in majistrates and crown court in the UK and criminal and civil courts in two states in germany .

I have offered the original poster my advice and not a legal analysis . He asked about the law . My advice was to go and talk to a competent soliciter . I say competent because the issues involved could involve not only internet law but allso personal information laws and international laws depending if it goes to court and where it goes to court . That could allso depend on where the owner lives , where the information is stored and where the person who wants his posts deleted lives .

Not doing that and / or takeing advice from people on forums could be VERY expensive . The person could end up haveing to pay his solicitor , court costs and the oponenmts soliciters costs and maybe damages . That could be in the tens of thousands of pounds / dollars / euros depending on the courts desission .

In the case that was brought up about the woman in the US and the girl who hanged herself i gave my opinion and not legal advice . I said to say anything about it we would have to have more information . I also said what my thoughts were about the case . I posted that post BEFORE the post that is now in front of my post that offer a web link that shows what i said to be sound . I dont know why the post before mine is there ? The only reason i can think of is that i posted mine and then edited it several times and that the post before it was posted while i was doing that .

Last year i was involved in exactly what the original poster was asking about = i wanted my posts deleted from a forum . The server is in holland where the owner allso lives . I live in germany . I had to get competent legal advice and allso advice from the information ministry here . The ministry couldnt give me advice straight away because it involved german , dutch and EU law and they had to find out what the newest laws and dessisions were . I was allso advised to get advice from a dutch solicitor . The owner of the site and a friend of mine in holland then did that . The owner had to delete very many of my posts but not all of them . Some were deleted and some had my forum name and my avatar removed .

stevemaury - As you are a solicitor i am prepared to trust you and send you the last court dessision that i was susessfull with plus some court files regarding that case . They are in german . Then you can see if i am any good or not . BUT if we go that far my condition would be that you then reply in this thread and state that what i say here about my last case is correct . The person i represented wasnt allowed to have legal aid because his chances of sucsess were considered to be null . I was allowed to make aplications to the court but wasnt allowed to give any evidence except things that the oponent had said and things from the files that the government department , who were against the person i represented , presented to the court because the oponent had a certain amount of imunity . ( I`m not sure if the word imunity is the right word ) . The case went to court in three cases each time with several apearances over nearly 10 years . I won .

Please give the original poster your opinion of his position . Please allso give your opinions , with explenations , of what i have said that isnt correct .

Thank you .

Thanks, but I really have neither the time nor the inclination. Besides, I get paid for doing legal analysis. Thanks anyway.

Thanks to you to . I didnt and dont want a duell with you . .

But thats not the point . The point is that a person asked a question . Was given the right answer . then you came in and made a funny comment but one that ment that what the original poster had been told was wrong . Then someone else came in and made a snoty coment and said that you are a lawyer . That changed the whole situation . That ment that the two comments you made were based on your legal skills = a legal analysis with no explenation . What do you think that that did / could have done to the person that asked the original question ? It could have made him think that the advice he had been given was wrong and left him hanging . Again the advice he had been given was correct and was the best thing for him to do = go and get competent legal advice .

I know that you didnt intend things to go this way but when someone said you are a lawyer things changed and in my opinion you are now moraly in the position that you should tell him what he should do . That wouldnt be giving free legal advice . It would take less time and less words than your last post .

I am not writeing any of this because of any ego reasons , or to get at you . I wasnt going to take part in the discussion section any more but then i saw a person needed sensible help so i gave it him purely out of concern for him .

I dont need anyones help with what i say or a legal analysis of what i have said , my record and my advice speak for themselves . I said what i said so that the person who asked the question would understand that i had given him the right answer to his question .

I am sincerely sorry how this has developed and that this whole thing might have caused any friction between us or for you . You are the last person on this site that i would want to hurt or annoy ................ The same goes for christian 2 .

Thank you .