Topic: The Registration Agreement

[Tim Russ]

I've had it pointed out to me that sometimes when people join (register) to be a member of a forum they may go quickly and not really read the agreement or having read it carefully they may forget it later on.  So, for future reference this will be a sticky message for everyone to review.

The Official Forum Agreement

WHENEVER YOU'RE REGISTERING A VERIFICATION EMAIL WILL BE SENT TO YOU.  IF YOU DON'T RECEIVE THIS EMAIL BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR BULK MESSAGE OR SPAM MESSAGE OR JUNK MESSAGE FOLDER.

IN ORDER TO COMPLETE REGISTRATION YOU MUST CLICK THE VERIFICATION LINK IN THE EMAIL.  IF YOU DON'T FIND THE REGISTRATION EMAIL ANYWHERE THEN EMAIL ME (publisher@believersbay.com) FROM THE EMAIL ADDRESS THAT YOU USED TO REGISTER SO WE CAN WORK IT OUT.


You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, adult material, or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law.

You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have written consent from the owner of the copyrighted material.

Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also forbidden on this forum.

Note that it is impossible for the staff or the owners of this forum to confirm the validity of posts. Please remember that we do not actively monitor the posted messages, and as such, are not responsible for the content contained within.

We do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information presented. The posted messages express the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of this forum, its staff, its subsidiaries, or this forum's owner.

Anyone who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to notify an administrator or moderator of this forum immediately. The staff and the owner of this forum reserve the right to remove objectionable content, within a reasonable time frame, if they determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, please realize that they may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately. This policy applies to member profile information as well.

You remain solely responsible for the content of your posted messages. Furthermore, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the owners of this forum, any related websites to this forum, its staff, and its subsidiaries. The owners of this forum also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of a formal complaint or legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum.

You have the ability, as you register, to choose your username. We advise that you keep the name appropriate. With this user account you are about to register, you agree to never give your password out to another person except an administrator, for your protection and for validity reasons. You also agree to NEVER use another person's account for any reason.  We also HIGHLY recommend you use a complex and unique password for your account, to prevent account theft.

After you register and login to this forum, you will be able to fill out a detailed profile. It is your responsibility to present clean and accurate information. Any information the forum owner or staff determines to be inaccurate or vulgar in nature will be removed, with or without prior notice. Appropriate sanctions may be applicable.

Please note that with each post, your IP address is recorded, in the event that you need to be banned from this forum or your ISP contacted. This will only happen in the event of a major violation of this agreement.

Also note that the software places a cookie, a text file containing bits of information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer.

[Dee]

Some forums claim a collective copyright on the writing placed on their forum.  Do you do that?  Who owns the copyright to what's posted here?

[Tim Russ]

The question of copyright has never come up but everything on the site is copyrighted.  I'll have to consider this and get back to you.

[Ro]

'Back in the day' - when I owned the site (September 2000-2007) the rule was that every submission that was published on BB had to be the owned by the author.  Then the articles, studies etc. retained the copyright of the author.  We had it set up that BB was acquiring First American Serial Rights for 3 months, we archived with permission from the author. 

Tim took the site over in September 2007. 

That's my 2 cents worth to give a little history.

[Tim Russ]

The site does retain a collective copyright on what's posted.  That means that nobody can scrape (copy) the site to post to other sites.  This is for the protection of the authors.  This doesn't mean that Believer's Bay owns the full copyright on what's posted.  The authors are the copyright owners of what they post except that when they post it here they don't necessarily have the right to remove it and they are automatically granting us the right to perpetually display it on the web.

[Ro]

Thank you for the explanation.

That is good.