it is indeed an interesting and as yet legally unproven area of law.

I can see that there are terms and conditions relating to the content and accessibility of postings, this indeed makes sense and is there for all of our protection.

I would ask though what would the legal position be if a posted article, story whatever was to be sold, and the request to have it withdrawn from the site not adhered to as:

The new owners, presumably a publishing company would not have signed up to any terms and conditions of the original poster, they would as we have highlighted wish to retain the commercial value of their acquired property and would seek its removal from the site.

They would own the IP of the article or whatever and be legally within their rights to demand the removal of and or royalties from the site.

As has been established the IP rights remain the property of the poster, as such they would be entitled to sell these to a third party.

Although there may well be terms and conditions associated with posting that cover rights at and whilst posted, they could not be legally considered to constitute a contract of sale, as no exchange or consideration has taken place. These terms only relate to the poster and the site. As soon as a third party acquires the rights this agreement would have to be considered as having been negated and void.

  1. The rights to the articles are without doubt and this is not I understand in any doubt, retained by the original posters.
  2. If they sell these articles to a third party, that third party will take ownership of said IP rights.
  3. The third party would have no agreement or contract with the site and would seek the removal of its property from the site.


We are all aware that many of the traditional publishing mediums Film, paper, Book and music are itching to take web based distributor to court, a test case would be costly and time consuming, and given that it would not actually involve the original poster an issue for the site to consider at length I would advise.

This issue is really for the site to address, as once a poster sells his or her IP and posting, they are will be removed from any ensuing legal action and subsequent claims.

I can see no reason why the site would wish to expose itself to the potential for suits when the removal of the number of sold articles, which can after all only represent a very small number when taken in comparison to the overall site output; when the risk and exposures is potentially so great.

I have worked in my professional life with a number of electronic media platforms and I know that media liability insurers are getting very nervous about such exposures. As mentioned this is currently a legally unproven are of law, a test case would involve many parties initially lodging claims and counter claims, the legal defense costs alone could prove to be considerable.

Mention is made of sites such as literotica as a matter of courtesy removing sold articles, i would argue that this is not mere courtesy but sound and prudent risk management mitigation and good business sense.