Park Slope Parents Threatening Bloggers Again

Park Slope Parents are at it again, suggesting that quoting their emails without permission is "against the law." Given that their stuff floats freely through the blogosphere and some of the biggest violators of their own "privacy policy" are their own members, it's interesting. Not only are they coming down against First Amendment rights, they're misleading their members into thinking that quoting emails violates copyright. It does not. There's clear legal precedent for quoting things. Here's the latest threat, which really, affects all of us and is part of a much broader pattern of people coming after blogs and websites that don't have a big staff of lawyers. In the biz, it's called trying to have a chilling effect. If you're afraid someone is going to sue you and even though you know you'll win, are you willing to spend $20K on a lawyer defending yourself over a dumb email? (These are emails, people, not unpublished drafts of The Old Man & the Sea.) On the other hand, they'll have to spend a lot on a lawyer too, so maybe it's like Mutually Assured Destruction. It's just irksome because their attitude is so arrogant. To all those who find interesting PSP emails, I say, post them everywhere. Let's create a blog that does nothing but repost PSP emails, host it on a server in Taiwan that is behind their grubby, litigious reach and drive them insane. In the meantime, shame on a supposedly liberal group treating freedom of speech with less respect than George Bush. Truly, there is no other similar group in Brooklyn that has issued "do not publish" threats to the blogging community. (On the other hand, there are few that so regularly end up on Gawker because of the colorful nature of the content.) Whenever a group has 6,200 members, it's rather hard to keep communications "private" and to keep things from being forwarded and posted all over the planet. Here's the vaguely threatening email:

Park Slope Parents is a members-only, private community that is growing
every day. Non-members cannot freely access or search the archives, but that doesn't mean that messages aren't forwarded or that there aren't members on the list who are journalists—whether legitimate or unscrupulous. At the last count we had more than 6,200 members on the MAIN Yahoo! discussion group.

WHAT IS PSP'S POLICY ON LIFTED POSTS?
Our policy on lifting content is consistent with Yahoo's Groups Terms of Service, and every message goes out with the following disclaimer:

"Ownership (and therefore responsibility) of all content lies with the author of the post. Content on this group is not to be copied, reproduced or linked to without expressed permission of the author."

We are disheartened when blogs lift PSP posts without permission because it affects our community—and in negative ways. Quoting people without their knowledge or permission goes against the spirit of community most members of the list have helped to create and discourages our members' openness and honesty.

We can't stop people from writing about "discussions" on the list. Sometimes such coverage is positive and informative. But, bloggers have
been lifting full (copyrighted) posts without the authors' permission. As Laura says, it is making people think twice about posting.

As moderators, it is not always easy to tell who is responsible. We would like it to stop.

WHAT ARE THE LEGAL ISSUES?
The legal facts as we understand them are these:
* Reproducing copyrighted material without permission is against the law.
* You own the copyright on your PSP posts.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Of course, not everyone who lifts content does so with malicious intent. Some of the discussions on the list can be inspiring in a positive way, and at times, a poster may not mind when his/her posts appear elsewhere.

HOWEVER, if you DON'T want your post reproduced and if someone has quoted you or simply lifted your post without permission, you should FIRST ask that the material be removed from the blog. (We have had bloggers who just weren't aware that the list was a private community and were very willing to remove the content). Feel free to email us your message so we know you've contacted the blogger. If a request doesn't work, there are other steps you can take depending on the situation.

Finally…Please don't forward messages to people who may misuse them. If you have a blog (and they're multiplying like rabbits), please ask permission from the author before publishing a message or a portion of a message that was posted to Park Slope Parents.

We would like the list, with its quirkiness and sometimes silly questions and discussions, to continue to be a safe environment for people to be awkward, sometimes obsessed parents. Ultimately we hope the collective wisdom that prevails on the list will help us all to be a little more sane everywhere else. Without that safety, the list suffers and the road of parenting becomes even more challenging.