Please define "owning" a forum.

I see it quite often.

Peoples posting on vB.com and other places "My forum has been stolen!". But they did not own or control the url/name server, the hosting account, and not even the forum backups. The one I just saw the person posting says he does own the vB software but to me that alone does not indicate ownership.

A large corporation usually has technical staff that gets paid real money to do a job, non-disclosure agreements, no company theft policies, etc. If the management of a corporation told the tech staff to build and maintain a forum (like at vB.com) then if there were ever issues of the forum getting hijacked by an employee that falls into some reasonably well defined law and they would be dealt with accordingly.


In order of importance, this is what owning a forum means to me outside of a corporate environment:

1. URL ownership/control, preferably locked down from being transferred, possibly a different tech person than the owner listed in the whois information.
2. Ownership/control of the server and the backups if at another location.
3. At the very bottom of the list would be the ownership of the software itself. vB, vBSEO, etc.
   

It seems often things happen when there are only hand shake/oral agreements where the tech person and part of the staff decides to lock the 'owner' out, but the owner does not control any of what is listed above. Then with only oral agreements the only recourse, if it is important enough, is to go through an muti-year federal and possibly international trial.

Someone with the title 'owner' that contributes to a forum may appear to own it, they may be popular, and everyone thinks they are the owner because of that, but I'm not sure they actually own the forum. At least it would be far easier if they controlled things as opposed to a handshake agreement.



What does ownership mean to you?

 

Ownership means to me the person who pays for the hosting, who has full backend access to the databases, WHM etc and who could turn the website off at the click of a button (other than the place theyre hosting at of course).

 

Then you could say the Hosting Company owns it...


But really, i agree..

 

I define owning as

1. Having either purchased, or been given the domain name that is in use and having full control with access to change details and nameservers.

Thats it for me, hosting can be provided by anyone including the owner (sometimes its donated).

To be a good owner is a different topic. A good owner should:
1. Own the domain as above.
2. Provide hosting that supports the site without problems or errors.
3. Be able to trouble shoot and fix the problems, or have a technical person who can 24/7 around the clock

Anyone can be a website owner, but being a good website owner takes more time and knowledge

 

Sometimes the right to 'proprietarily ownership' does not make you the owner. To me it's the one that is registered with the seller as buyer. Unless proper transfer of ownership has occured you leave yourself open to questionable ownership.

You can have an owner of domain, hosting, and site software be different people. Unless they are incorporated to one entity and sign over the rights to owership, it stays with whoever.

I hope no one would be stupid enough to install software on their domain/hosting unless a written agreement (signed and hardcopy) or transfer has occurred to register in one/both.

Otherwise it's questionable. Nine out of ten times whoever has the receipt is going to win unless a transfer has been submitted to the original seller or a signed agreement. But then you could have a battle. As some software does not allow for a transferable license.

 

Who 'owns' a forum? Very easily answered:
If you own the hosting account, you own the webspace, not the forum.
If you own the domain, you own the domain, not the content on it.
If you own the license, you own the forum.

If there is no forum license (ie: it's free software), then he(or she) who owns the account holds the data and the forum. He (or she) who owns the domain merely owns a domain. Without data, they're nowhere.

This is one of the things that makes security so very important. Part of security is making sure only one person has absolute (administrator) permissions and access to the forum server account. More than that and you've got a problem.

 

Well I think we could all agree that anyone at any time can buy Internet brands software, or vB software, or download a variety of other free forum software. So lets forget about the software itself for the moment.

I think we could also all agree that any of us could open another hosting account somewhere, so for the moment lets not focus on that.

So setting aside the legal issues with regards to who may or may not own the actual posts in a courtroom, then that leaves the database & URL. Which I believe means that if the 'owner' of the site has regular backups of the site and has the URL in their name they 'own' the site. I think.


Input?

 

Without having access to the 'hosting account', though, you're not going to have access to the 'data'. Sure, you can (may) have an SQL dump but what good is that without the theme, custom images, custom setup, and knowledge of how to implement it.

Again, this gets back to one very simple security policy. One administrator, no more. Make that admin uneditable, choose very wisely when it comes to your password, and hire your mods carefully. Give nothing out when it comes to ftp unless it's locked down to very, very specific directories.

When it comes down to it, simpler is better for security. You don't see linux floating around with 20+ root users, no, there's but one. One admin to rule them all, and that admin should be very, very secured.

Who actually 'owns' the forums? The one that can shut it off at any given time.

 

Great advise on security!

Although I typed database I meant the whole site backed up, I should have typed better.

 

I disagree. If you own the hosting account, you also own the databases within it, and therefore you own the forum database. The forum database is really the core of the website. You can always do without the domain, without the exact current software, and without being on the same server. All of those things are variable, but what is constant is the forum database.

I think if you own the license, you only own the medium through which the forum is displayed and accessible. As I said above, the forum script can always be switched/imported. It's the database that is most important.

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Anyways, legally speaking, the ownership lies in the part(y/ies) that have invested time into the site, its growth, its upkeep, and its success. It's called quantum meruit.
So if you had a case of joint owners disputing complete ownership, it would be divided by a judge, but mostly based upon who has invested more time into the site - not who owns the we bhosting, domain, vB license, or even the database.

 

Not really. Leasing hosting services is a business arrangement it doesn't mean they own your website. It would be no different if you leased offices offline to hold your actual operations. The landlord does not own your business.

 

Its interesting to see the different concepts on who exactly owns a web site. Lots of different varying opinions.

some people say, if you can access the database, you own the site, but how do you declare who "owns" the database. What if you just have access to export the information in the database, such as a technical server admin would have?

Some say, who ever pays for hosting, or owns the software license. I agree, you can't have the site without hosting or the software, but what if someone has the ability to move the site or the database away from the hosting and the software being used?

Some say if you own the domain you own the site. Since you can't have a website without a domain name (for simplicity sake). This is the fundamental part of every website on the internet. They all have a domain name and without one they wouldn't exisit.

All this makes for some interesting concepts about web site ownership. I think the only way to really know who owns a website, is if there is a sole proprietor to the website. One who controls every aspect of it from software, domains, hosting and other aspects of it.

If you're going to have "partners" in a website, then their ownership percentage, role on the forums and what they are going to provide would need to be outlined in some sort of agreement either prior to the site being built, or during the life of the site (before a conflict of ownership occurs).

Without this written agreement between all parties, then someone is going to have a hard time prooving who actually owns the site and it could really be a jump ball situation if it goes as far as court.

 

I'll go with this. But I would hope if that sole proprietor would be capable of hiring a tech admin without putting the ownership of the site in jeopardy. Every corporation I've worked for hires a cleaning staff, if they took something from an office at night that is considered theft and I would hope that a sites database would be considered the same.

If this is true, then I know someone who just lost a big big law suit. Will know sometime in the next year the results of that.

 

I sure hope it's true because it's the information I was advised of when I consulted a lawyer in a potential dispute of ownership.

 

I'd actually only partner with someone if a valid legal partnership was created and it clearly spelled out in writing the percentages of each partner's share.

 

In this day and age one really should be a recognized business entity where the business owns the software, contracts the hosting and support. In a group effort each entity would own some share of the whole. This why in the event of a dispute the company bylaws will spell out how such disputes are settled and what rights the individual has.

 

Dealing sith 'root' level server access for years, I know that sentiment all too well. It's sad that there are so many people out there that take advantage of this trust and abuse it, this really makes it harder on honest people such as myself to make a living.

This is one of the main reasons that I say he (or she) who owns the account owns the forum, because they can lock anything out, redirect the forum wherever they like, even shut down the forum if they so choose, simply by doing a few things.

Of course, if you've got a copy of the database, you're going to have the forum as well, but do you have the rights (legally) to use that database? There's a whole lot of maybe's there. And , what CAN you do with just a database? You still need the scripts, the mods, the theme. The database (by itself) is pretty worthless. With the proper mods, scripts and images though, it's a powerful thing.

 

True, but as long as you have a copy of the database, the other things are replaceable: the forum script, the mods, the images. What isn't replaceable is the database itself, which is why it's the "golden key" to the site.

Without it, you have nothing; with it, you either 1) do have everything or 2) can easily acquire what you don't have (the script, images, etc.).

 

Let's use the term 'site backup' instead of database to avoid any confusion.

Without getting the law involved, if Joe is the sole proprietor of yoursite.com, and hires Jane for server work, Jane in theory could delete everything.

If there were site backups on another hosting account and Jane had access to those she could delete those as well.

What Jane could not do, is delete site backups on Joes personal computer, especially if Joe had those backed up in his home/office as well. Nor could Jane point yoursite.com's name server to another hosting account unless she was given access (or hacked into the account somehow).


Is that correct?


In addition if Jane were to start up yoursite.net with the back up from yoursite.com then there is little that can be done without getting the law involved. Although I'm sure people could make life difficult for Jane by doing various activities on and off the internet.



The premise of this particular post is that Joe is the sole proprietor.


The question this thread is asking is: what determines ownership of a forum if more than one entity is involved in the creation of a forum. I'm not sure there is a clear answer. I don't think it is the owner of the script, and I don't think it is the person taking care of the hosting which as Wayne pointed out would be like the owner of an office building assuming control of the company they are renting out offices to.

 

See post #10:

It would essentially be word vs. word and the judge would have to make their decision based on allegations that have no way of being backed up.