This forum and the law

This is an international forum hosted in the Netherlands, so as far as I’m concerned Dutch laws apply to this forum. In this topic I’ll document any situation that arises while operating this forum. If you have comments/complaints please use the forum ‘report’ function, reply in this topic or contact me privately.

  • Posting content from private emails *
    Dutch copyright law applies to copying private email content on this forum. Dutch copyright law essentially says: When the author explicitly states that the email content is private you may not cite it publicly. Citation (i.e. copy/paste) is only allowed when the author explicitly allows you to cite. Otherwise you may spread the gist of the email in your own words only as the original email is protected by copyright.

The forum moderators and I will remove offending content as soon as possible when someone takes issues with copying their email on this forum and reported this.

  • Defamation / Freedom of speech *
    Dutch civil law leaves a lot of room for freedom of speech, but knowingly spreading lies to publicly hurt someone is punishable by fine or up to three years of jail.

On this forum it is expected that participants stay away from attacking other users and keep discussion civil, even if you wholeheartedly disagree or feel emotional about the subject at hand. The forum moderators can be contacted through the ‘Report’ function to intervene. Usually intervention is a public request to the participants to calm down and adhere by the forum rules. In the past it has come to legal threats against the forum administrator, OSMF and others for not removing supposedly defamatory content, none of these threats have materialized in a court case (yet).

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PS. I’m not a lawyer but I try to act to my best knowledge how Dutch law is intended.

Looks like new server is located in University College London - what legal implication may it have?