Question(s) About How does Copyrighting Work Upon This Forum And/Or The WWW In General?

In general, unless you have assigned copyright to someone else, if you produce original work, in theory the copyright is yours.

But often small print (such as in facepack) assigns copyright to a website.  Then there is something called 'creative commons' such as on wikipedia where you let others use your work (which applies even if you didn't understand what it means).

Then even if the copyright is yours, enforcing it is something else.  Litigation is expensive and the only people that always gain from legal action are the legal profession.  Damages are often limited to 'loss' and loss for something your write on a free forum will probably be zero.  However if someone uses your work without your permission and you haven't assigned copyright elsewhere you may be able to get the payment they got for it ... but often payment for things is very low anyway - pictures frequently only sell for a fiver for printing in a small publication.

Plaguirism has always been a problem with work.  As is people parodying another work.  Neil Innes wrote the songs for the film The Rutles, in the style of the Beatles.  They were parodies and did not have any of the tunes of the Beatles.  However, he was sued by the Beatles (or Paul McCartney anyway) and in an out of court settlement he had to pay all royalties to the Beatles.    And George Harrison had to pay royalties to the writers of 'He's so vain' since it was nearly note for note the same as his record of 'My Sweet Lord'.

There is little copyright in an idea.  So someone can use the same idea as you have had and produce a similar but different work.  Someone can also use small parts and quote from your work in the production of another work.  They can use something of yours as part of a bigger work as long as it is substantially different.  And all this applies anywhere, internet or not.

You would also have to be aware of the fact someone had taken your work.  Probably not easy, and if it took several years to find out it would be a test to find out where it came from.  Sometimes a similar idea comes simultaneously with someone else.  There is an American comic strip character in a striped jumper called Dennis the Menace.  There is also a British comic strip character in a striped jumper called Dennis the Menace.  It was ruled that it was just a coincidence in the 1950s so both continue.

Copyright exists for different periods of time for different uses of a particular work.  So a gramophone record which is fifty years old can be copied but there may be copyright in the song it contains.  A recording artist however would not get any royalties from a record which had been copied by another company and commercially exploited, but the songwriter probably would if they were still alive or not been dead for seventy five years.  But this only applies to copying the record itself.  The original company could produce a cd and then copyright exists in that cd for another fifty years.  Anyone copying the track from the cd would be in breach of copyright.  Clear?  I didn't think so!  So fraught is the world of copyright.

Now to your poem.  If NAS has small print that anything on the forum belongs to them and you assign all copyright to them, then the copyright is theirs.  If they say nothing about copyright then the copyright is yours.  But I would imagine somewhere you have agreed that you will allow any material to be used as NAS sees fit.  Otherwise there would be endless litigation from people who believed that NAS had used some of their material.  This is what the pages of small print in 'terms and conditions which you agree to is all about.  This probably would not prevent you from submitting it elsewhere, to a book for example and getting paid for it, or someone discovering your work and wanting to use it for an advertisment and you getting riches beyond your wildest dreams.  Well we all can dream, can't we!

And it is also a reason why you should put links to other people's works (for example, pictures on Flickr) rather than copy them and put them on this forum.  That way you are not infringing the copyright.

The only way you can be sure that no-one uses your material is to keep it to yourself. 

Glad Tidings, Mr. Brains-From-Thunderbirds...!

I read this answer first, so you might want to get rid of the duplicate below. I recocgnise very much what you say, honestly I do...

Trainspotter said:

The only way you can be sure that no-one uses your material is to keep it to yourself. 

...including this harshness... *sniffle!*

But, yes, for now, Thanks for stating much of what what I was suspecting anyway, and later I may post a deeper response. (Your Post is long - this takes me long to fully consider!)

Being concise was  never one of my faults!

Being concise was  never one of my faults!

:-)