If nothing copy written is allowed posted here (understandable) and since this web site is the property of the webmasters, does that mean that the writings posted by others become the property of the webmasters? And, in doing so, do the ideas become their ideas?

No. Anything you write on the board becomes license free, open source, and enters the creative commons. That's not an official policy, but if you can't publish anything copyright, then that's all that's left by default.

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Fraser Cain
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Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

Technically, anything written first on here is copyright the author. This post would be Copyright me 2005, for instance. It's not open source, as I do not attach an open source license to my post, nor any other legal agreement.

The issue is with posting material that has someone else's copyright on the boards. One can still apply 'fair use' for small portions of the copyrighted work, but posting it in its entirety is possibly plagiarism (even if attributed properly) and certainly a violation of the author/publisher's copyright.

Plus, most items posted here wind up being lengthy articles. You don't want to eat up that much of the thread with a single post, out of courtesy to the rest of us trying to browse the thread.

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I'd be fine with that. As long as it's an original post, and you want to let people know that it's under your copyright. But anything you write is automatically copyright anyway.

But to answer your original question, no, Phil and I won't assert any copyright over anything published on the forum. If you wrote it, it's yours. Feel free to republish it anywhere you like, as an article, screenplay, etc.

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Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

I'd disagree that anything we might post in this public forum somehow becomes open source, or loses our copyright on it. While one might expect that copying of our words happens in the manner to be expected -- cached versions kept on various servers and personal computers, forum archives maintained, backups made, posts moved to descendant fora (like from BABB to BAUT), posts quoted in their entirety on the forums -- other uses must be under our control. If, say, one of my BAUT posts was reproduced on the Enterprise Mission website, you can bet Dick Hoagland would get a demand letter from me to remove it, followed by other legal remedies if he didn't.

And don't worry about your ideas being protected. They're not. You can't copyright ideas. If you freely divulge an idea (probably absent trade-secret or patent protection) anyone may reproduce it -- in their own words, of course -- or otherwise utilize it.

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I was wrong. I take it back. If you wrote it, it's your copyright.

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Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

I just want to point out that the use of the term Open Source in this thread is probably inappropriate. The term would be public domain, and as 01101001 said, things written here do not enter that domain unless the author express that or a long time pass. As an aside, open source (software) is generally not public domain.