Member Agreement Changes

[Chris Hennes]

One of the things we've undertaken as part of our recent change in leadership is a review of the current Society Member Agreement: the agreement was originally codified in 2006, and a lot has changed since then!

The first change we are making is to our copyright guidelines. In particular, recent US caselaw has given us much better direction as to what constitutes "fair use" of copyrighted material. In light of that guidance, we are modifying our fair use policy to expand and clarify it. In particular, we wanted to ensure that you can use some types of copyrighted images in your posts as long as they are allowed under the Fair Use doctrine.

The new guidelines are (new text in bold):

Ownership or Permission

• Copyrighted material may be posted in eG Forums and other Society media without limitation if: the copyright is owned by the Society; the member posting such material owns the copyright; or the member posting such material has permission from the copyright owner.
  
• Any material that is posted with permission of the copyright owner must be accompanied by a link to the online source, where appropriate, and an attribution notice that takes this form: Copyright © John Smith, All Rights Reserved, Reproduced with Permission.
  

Images

• Images may be posted in eG Forums and other Society media if: the member posting such image is the owner of the image; the member posting such image has permission from the owner of the image; the image is in the public domain; or the image has previously been posted in eG Forums discussions in compliance with these guidelines.
  
• Any images posted with permission of the copyright owner must be accompanied by an attribution notice that takes this form: Copyright © John Smith, all rights reserved, reproduced with permission.
  

Fair Use

• Copyrighted text may be posted up to approximately 150 words or 15% of the original work, whichever is less, for purposes of discussion, commentary and criticism.
  
• For multi-chapter works longer excerpts are permissible: for excerpts in excess of 500 words please contact an eG Forums Host prior to posting.
  
• Product images may be posted in discussion of the product in question provided a link is given to the manufacturer's website for the product, or to an online purchasing site for the product (e.g. amazon.com).
  
• Other images not owned by the Society, the poster, or in the public domain, must be of reduced size and quality compared to the original, and must include a link to the page the image was taken from.
  
• Any copyrighted material that is posted under this fair use standard must be accompanied by a link to the online source, where appropriate, and attributed as appropriate.
  
• Fair use is determined on a case-by-case basis: if you believe a removed post satisfied the fair use doctrine, or if you are the owner of intellectual property that you believe has been posted in violation of the fair use doctrine, please contact the Society at feedback@egullet.org
  

Public Domain

• Material in the public domain may be posted without limitation; however members are responsible for ascertaining that works are indeed in the public domain.
  
• Any material that is posted from works in the public domain should be accompanied by a notice to that effect.
  

If you have any comments or concerns please contact me directly via pm or e-mail.

[Chris Hennes]

The second change we are making to the Member Agreement is to expand the scope of what constitutes "research": previously, the agreement said

Media solicitations

• Members of the press are welcome in eG Forums discussions; however, participation for research purposes must be disclosed publicly at the outset, and is permissible only to the extent that it encourages public discussion and does not solicit private replies.
  
• Members of the press wishing to post requests to interview members should contact the Society public, media and community relations team at pr@eGullet.org with their requests. We will post appropriate requests and forward voluntary member responses along with relevant contact information.
  
• If you use eG Forums resources in a published work, please cite the member and note that the quotation, recipe or other information came from an eG Forums discussion at www.eGullet.org, the website of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters.
  
• NOTE TO COPY EDITORS AND FACT CHECKERS: The Society for Culinary Arts & Letters is a 501c3 public charity. The URL for all eGullet Society offerings is www.eGullet.org, not .com.
  

We are changing this to ensure that anyone who wants to do research on the forums knows that they are allowed to do so, including academics, journalists, software developers, etc.:

Participation for research purposes (including journalism, academic research, and product development)

• Participation for in the eG forums for research purposes must be disclosed publicly at the outset, and is permissible only to the extent that it encourages public discussion and does not solicit private replies.
  
• Those wishing to post requests to interview members should contact the Society public, media and community relations team at pr@eGullet.org with their requests. We will post appropriate requests and forward voluntary member responses along with relevant contact information.
  
• If you use eG Forums resources in a published work, please cite the member and note that the quotation, recipe or other information came from an eG Forums discussion at www.eGullet.org, the website of the Society for Culinary Arts & Letters.
  
• NOTE TO COPY EDITORS AND FACT CHECKERS: The Society for Culinary Arts & Letters is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization. The URL for all Society offerings is eGullet.org, not .com.