No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

DanJoyce
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by DanJoyce »

Like many things in law, copyright isn’t black and white. That’s why judges make rulings on it, and why one of the litmus tests is ‘what would a reasonable person think?’

It could be argued - and I would argue this - that asking a question on the CTC Forum gives implied permission for that same question to be published in Cycle magazine. The writer is asking publicly on a forum set up for and largely populated by CTC members, and hosted by CTC. And Cycle is published *on behalf of* CTC for the membership. Implied permission does not affect copyright; the copyright holder (i.e. the writer of the question) retains copyright. But even if that argument didn’t hold, reproducing forum content of this nature, in the way that it has been reproduced, would fall under the definition of ‘fair dealing with a copyright work’. Fair dealing doesn’t affect copyright either.

I can envisage a situation where it might not be fair dealing to reproduce something from the forum. For example, let’s say Cycle printed an in-depth technical answer from the forum written by someone who was about to close a publishing deal for a book or magazine article on that subject. If publishing the forum post prevented that author from selling the rights, that is *not* fair dealing. Permission would have to have been sought in advance.

While we’re on the subject of copyright: all emails or letters to Cycle give implied permission to publish. If it’s not for publication, you must specifically state that. By extension, forum posts that specifically state they are *not* for publication in Cycle would not have implied permission either. Such posts would still probably fall within the scope of fair dealing, if re-used, but it will tell *me* that you don’t want your post re-using and I will respect that.

I’ll keep any eye on this thread but will probably not post further.
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mjr
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by mjr »

DanJoyce wrote:And Cycle is published *on behalf of* CTC for the membership.

It's lovely if that's the spirit, but that's not what the everything-is-forbidden text on the contents page says. It would be brilliant if it did say that and the membership could use the magazine liberally to promote CTC.

DanJoyce wrote:... But even if that argument didn’t hold, reproducing forum content of this nature, in the way that it has been reproduced, would fall under the definition of ‘fair dealing with a copyright work’. Fair dealing doesn’t affect copyright either.

A commercial magazine (Cycle has a cover price, even if members don't pay it) cannot claim fair dealing for the purposes of research or education (which are both limited to non-commercial) - and taking a technical question from the forum doesn't fit fair dealing for news reporting and reviews, incidental inclusion, accessibility, libraries, public administration, or the other provisions, so I'm struggling to see how it's fair dealing.
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Psamathe
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by Psamathe »

mjr wrote:A commercial magazine (Cycle has a cover price, even if members don't pay it) cannot claim fair dealing for the purposes of research or education (which are both limited to non-commercial)....

Even if it did not have a cover price, that it is presented as a major benefit for buying membership means that it is in effect being used to generate income for the CTC.

Ian
drossall
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by drossall »

mjr wrote:... taking a technical question from the forum doesn't fit fair dealing for news reporting and reviews, incidental inclusion, accessibility, libraries, public administration, or the other provisions, so I'm struggling to see how it's fair dealing.


+1. As I understand it, fair dealing is much misunderstood. It's hard to see how taking the entirety of something from one place and publishing it elsewhere could ever be fair dealing.

That said, printing interesting forum questions is a reasonable idea, and adding permission to do it to the forum terms and conditions, with something done to ask those of us already signed up to accept the new terms, would not worry me.
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by Psamathe »

drossall wrote:...
That said, printing interesting forum questions is a reasonable idea, and adding permission to do it to the forum terms and conditions, with something done to ask those of us already signed up to accept the new terms, would not worry me.

Or just ask those whose posts you intend to print. Not difficult (either e-mail or PM) and if no answer assume you can't use their copyright content. Plenty of interesting threads and posts to print so quite reasonable to ask on a post by post basis.

Or better still, get a Technical Officer to write a section in the magazine, either based on what is going on in cycling and/or issues people raise.

Ian
TonyR
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by TonyR »

Psamathe wrote:
mjr wrote:A commercial magazine (Cycle has a cover price, even if members don't pay it) cannot claim fair dealing for the purposes of research or education (which are both limited to non-commercial)....

Even if it did not have a cover price, that it is presented as a major benefit for buying membership means that it is in effect being used to generate income for the CTC.

Ian


Its more complex than that. I don't know the exact relationship of the magazine to the charity but I would be fairly certain it would be classed as primary purpose trading which is a charitable activity in furtherance of the charity's aims and public benefit. If it were non-primary purpose trading - essentially trading activity solely to raise income - it would not be charitable activity and would need to be carried out in a trading subsidiary company so as not to risk the CTC's charitable status.

I would expect in this case the use would fall under the fair dealing for criticism or review exemption. In CTC's favour is the work is already in the public domain, it is published on a CTC owned domain, it is not a copy of the whole thread but an extraction of the question part for the purpose of providing an answer, there is no economic damage to the author and the Courts tend to be quite liberal in their interpretation of the exemption. The only thing I am not sure of because I haven't yet seen it in Cycle is whether the obligation for proper acknowledgement was met.

What CTC is doing is far better than a cycle forum called, IIRC, YACF used to do (haven't checked whether they still do) which was to take Usenet threads and copy them as forum threads to give the forum the appearance of a lot of active discussions.
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by PH »

TonyR wrote:Its more complex than that. I don't know the exact relationship of the magazine to the charity but I would be fairly certain it would be classed as primary purpose trading which is a charitable activity in furtherance of the charity's aims and public benefit. If it were non-primary purpose trading - essentially trading activity solely to raise income - it would not be charitable activity and would need to be carried out in a trading subsidiary company so as not to risk the CTC's charitable status.

I understood it was seen as a member benefit and as such one of the things stopping CTC from claiming the much promised Gift Aid.
TonyR
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by TonyR »

PH wrote:
TonyR wrote:Its more complex than that. I don't know the exact relationship of the magazine to the charity but I would be fairly certain it would be classed as primary purpose trading which is a charitable activity in furtherance of the charity's aims and public benefit. If it were non-primary purpose trading - essentially trading activity solely to raise income - it would not be charitable activity and would need to be carried out in a trading subsidiary company so as not to risk the CTC's charitable status.

I understood it was seen as a member benefit and as such one of the things stopping CTC from claiming the much promised Gift Aid.


Is there a block on Gift Aid? There is no mention of it in the latest accounts and I would have expected there to be if there was Gift Aid that had been expected to be received but wasn't.
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by PH »

TonyR wrote:Is there a block on Gift Aid? There is no mention of it in the latest accounts and I would have expected there to be if there was Gift Aid that had been expected to be received but wasn't.


Yes, it was a much publicised advantage of the charity conversion, however it can't be claimed if the membership benefits account for more than 25% of the membership fee. The magazine is counted as such a benefit and at the published price, rather than the cost which I understand is between £3 and £4 a year.
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gaz
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by gaz »

TonyR wrote:Is there a block on Gift Aid? There is no mention of it in the latest accounts and I would have expected there to be if there was Gift Aid that had been expected to be received but wasn't.

viewtopic.php?f=45&t=91168&start=15#p839183
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mjr
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by mjr »

I'm wondering what reviews of forum posts look like :lol:

In other words, I don't agree that nicking a technical question and answering it classifies as fair dealing under that heading which is meant to enable things like film reviews and Cliff Notes.
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All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Psamathe
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by Psamathe »

PH wrote:
TonyR wrote:Is there a block on Gift Aid? There is no mention of it in the latest accounts and I would have expected there to be if there was Gift Aid that had been expected to be received but wasn't.


Yes, it was a much publicised advantage of the charity conversion, however it can't be claimed if the membership benefits account for more than 25% of the membership fee. The magazine is counted as such a benefit and at the published price, rather than the cost which I understand is between £3 and £4 a year.

Rather off-topic but the 25% rule seems weird when you think about Public Schools (Eton, Westminster, etc.) because I bet they get Gift Aid and I bet that the fees that the "benefit" their students receive accounts for more than 25% of the fees. (But I'm only guessing, just a thought not any statement of any fact)

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drossall
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by drossall »

No, see here.

In general, though, regarding schools, I think we've been here before. Regarding schools as entirely charitable is only weird if you don't take account of changing views which, incidentally, I think could be a risk to other charities. As I understand it, education has previously been considered inherently a public good. The argument goes that educating the next generation obviously benefits the nation. It seems a much more recent development to take the view that the benefit is mainly to the individual who is educated.

Hence the recent pressure on public schools to show benefit to the rest of society.

Now you can argue that this is or is not a good thing, but I think that's outside the scope of the present discussion. What interests me is that changing public attitudes can change the accepted view of what is charitable. However, charitable status is a contract between society and the charity, from which the charity has no escape, other than to close down and pass its assets to another charity. Hence, society can change the terms of the contract, and the charity just has to follow along, whether or not it believes that the new conditions reflect the purpose that it exists to serve.

Even if you think that the change for schools is good, I'm not entirely sure that I'm comfortable with the idea that that could happen in other spheres. For example, what if the nation suddenly got much healthier, and the mere fact of promoting sports participation were no longer enough to make a charity deserving of public support? Indeed, getting people even fitter was simply seen as giving them a self-serving advantage? This is simply a reversal of the recent change in attitudes that made it possible for the CTC to become a charity.
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by TonyR »

PH wrote:
TonyR wrote:Is there a block on Gift Aid? There is no mention of it in the latest accounts and I would have expected there to be if there was Gift Aid that had been expected to be received but wasn't.


Yes, it was a much publicised advantage of the charity conversion, however it can't be claimed if the membership benefits account for more than 25% of the membership fee. The magazine is counted as such a benefit and at the published price, rather than the cost which I understand is between £3 and £4 a year.


Did it? It looks like the issue is more widely related to membership benefits. The HMRC guidance is "Literature that tells donors what your charity does eg a newsletter or a simple plaque to thank a donor, doesn’t count as benefits."
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/gift-aid-wh ... n-claim-on
drossall
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Re: No more CTC technical officer ** NO HOAX **

Post by drossall »

Yes, for charities that are membership organisations, the money provided by members has to be a genuine donation to qualify for Gift Aid. If you're getting a service in return, it's not a donation. 25% is, I think, a rule of thumb because members often get some kind of benefit, and because there's nothing wrong in principle with asking people to join in order to receive the organisation's services. However, there needs to be a distinction between charitable donations and payments for service.
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