copyright internet england-and-wales data-ownership
Who owns the rights to the questions on Stack Exchange?
<p>I asked a question here a year ago and this was removed. Who owns the rights to the question, and can it be republished?</p>
<p>On what grounds could it have been removed?</p>

<p>This seems to be a mix of question about law and a meta-question about this site, but I'll treat it as an on-topic question about law. The author of a question, or answer, owns the copyright to their contributions, and they can re-publish to their heart's content. Any user who posts here grants a license to SE and other users to use content posted here, so I don't have to ask you permission to quote you. As part of the permission granted by SE to use this website, you have agreed to &quot;follow the rules&quot; set by SE. There are many rules, some spelled out more clearly that others. For example, if you post a question, you indirectly agreed that your content can be upvoted or down-voted. Certain content can be &quot;closed&quot; and deleted, when the content is deemed to violate the rules in particular ways (is spam, porn, abuse, or judged to be poor-quality). Judgment (on different matters) can be rendered by community managers, moderators, or other users. The agreement is <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service">here</a>, see especially <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service#obligations">here</a>. If we take the post that you linked to, it is quite possible that it was deleted because it is not a general legal question, in violation of the <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy">acceptable use policy</a>.</p>
<p>If you want a historical analysis of your particular case, it should be asked on Law Meta.</p>

<p>The <strong>Network Terms</strong> say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Subscriber Content</strong></p>
<p>You agree that any and all content, including without limitation any
and all text, graphics, logos, tools, photographs, images,
illustrations, software or source code, audio and video, animations,
and product feedback (collectively, “Content”) that you provide to the
public Network (collectively, “Subscriber Content”), is perpetually
and irrevocably licensed to Stack Overflow on a worldwide,
royalty-free, non-exclusive basis pursuant to Creative Commons
licensing terms (CC BY-SA 4.0), and you grant Stack Overflow the
perpetual and irrevocable right and license to access, use, process,
copy, distribute, export, display and to commercially exploit such
Subscriber Content, even if such Subscriber Content has been
contributed and subsequently removed by you</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This means that the original poster retains the copyright, and can post the content elsewhere, or use it as the basis of a derivative work, but anyone else can use or modify the content from the version posted provided that proper credit is given, and the content is released under the same license.</p>
<p>So the poster &quot;owns&quot; the content,  but SE and anyone else has permission to use it, reproduce it, and create modifier copies, subject to the license.</p>
<p>As to that particular question, I can't see it on SE so I can't see any record of why it may have been removed. It does look to me like a request for specific legal advice, which is off-topic on the Law.se site.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Who owns the rights to the question and can it be republished?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The question is: which rights are you talking about?</p>
<p>If you are talking about copyrights, then you &quot;own&quot; the copyrights. (I really dislike talking about rights, especially copyrights in terms of &quot;ownership&quot; as if they were a piece of property like a hammer that you loan your neighbor.)</p>
<p>However, when you signed up to the site, you were presented with the Terms of Service, and you confirmed that you have read and fully understood them. And in these Terms of Service, you give Stack Exchange, Inc. (or in your case more likely Stack Overflow, Ltd.) a worldwide, non-exclusive, non-revocable, perpetual license to use your contributions under the terms of the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
<p>This means that Stack Overflow is allowed to publish your content, is allowed to edit it, combine it with other content, as long as they themselves abide by the terms of the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Most importantly, they are also allowed, in fact, even <em>forced</em>, to offer those same license terms to anybody else who wants to use your content.</p>
<p>Note, however, that Stack Overflow is <em>allowed</em> to publish your content. There is nothing that <em>requires</em> them to.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>On what grounds could it have been removed?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Any grounds whatsoever. Stack Overflow is a private company, not the government, and this is their own private website. They can publish or not publish, delete or not delete from their own website anything they want.</p>
