What precautions must a forum owner take to ensure the content stays legal..........

I've not set my forum up yet but here are potential problems I was wondering about:-

People posting text/ photos / illustrations that infringes others copyright
People saying things about other people or organisations that could end up in court

I suppose I just want to make sure I stay on the right side of the law. Additionally, as I am based in the UK is the law substantially different from the US?

Any suggestions about keeping things legal????

Can you be sued for forum content? Yes, you can be sued for anything...Whether or not the lawsuit goes anywhere is another question, and it depends on the circumstances.

In short, you must not knowingly allow members to post illegal, slanderous, etc. information. If they do post this information - it's your responsibility to remove it and whatever else a reasonable person would do. You can't control what people say, but you do decide what stays and what goes.

More info on this can be found here:
http://www.adminfusion.com/forums/t8304/
http://www.adminfusion.com/forums/t14914/

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well the best way to avoid legal issues is to state clearly that you have warn them before they are allow to post the content. This way you have a clear explaination if you ever end up in court.

For all things the infringes other copyrights, as long as you give the copyrighter credit for what they done, you have no issue, unless you refuse to remove it upon request.

As for other people saying bad things. You simply do not allow framing in the forums. However, 9/10 you will not be sued because you are hosting the forum. The ones who continue and start the thread say it would be responsible, for the actions. BUT, it is your job to stop the discussion from happening, you should lock the post immediately and give out warnings.

You can. But in most cases no. And in most cases the most extreme that can happen is that you have to remove the content the user posted.

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As a webmaster, you are responsible for what is displayed to your visitors and what is accessible, more so as you have control over what stays and what goes.

In regards to legal battle, most legal threats are just that, threats. They are intended to scare you and break you down. I've been in the business long enough to know that a good percentage never surface to more than threatening e-mails.

Only once have I received paper I could hold in regards to a lawsuit and even it didn't amount to anything more than a phone call to a lawyer, with mine on the other line and it was done.

So long you're not allowing illegal content to be posted and your mindful of what goes on around your community, you should be fine.

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Furthermore, you have to take into account that the forum owner may not be aware of what's posted... which makes it not fair to keep the liable for what they don't know.

For example, youtube. Illegal videos are on their site. But they didn't post it, they just host it. once informed about it they're promptly removed.

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That's why there is a huge market for people writing those registration agreements. Like Ryan said, you can be sued for anything. However, a good registration agreement that says that it is impossible to control all content and that you are not responsible for what members may post and you should be fine.

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To be honest, just as the Terms of Service a web hosting provider uses can be overruled in court, so can a registration agreement.

While it is a virtual contract, it's important not to make it too ridiculous or strict.

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In the UK any messages posted on your website are considered as being your responsibility, in effect you are the publisher. Your registration agreement is irrelevent.

That said, there are very few things that would see you in court.

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At the end of the day you can be sued for any thing, if Google can be sued for dropping a site from its listing or not ranking it well enough, then just think what it might take to get you sued. But whether or not you stand to loose in court is another thing.

Having a properly framed registration agreement and implementing it, allows you to avoid such events.

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