DaveIFM, You are nuts ,,,,big grin.

SendMe, I had an unsettling experience once when I was teaching crafts courses. I spent some time writing descriptions of the courses, creating unusual phrases that described the course and what could be expected.

I also collected brochures from other localities to see what was offered, so I could create courses that would help round out a curriculum, then apply to those localities to teach adult ed crafts courses.

While doing that, I found a brochure in which a course was described using some of my exact wording. It was an unusual phrase, not commonly used and in fact I made up the phrase myself. Then there it was in someone else's course description.

From then on I added copyright notations on all the information I prepared, including class handouts. It might not stop someone who doesn't respect intellectual property rights though.

I used to see a lot of copyright abuse in crafting when people just wantonly copied patterns and mailed them to their friends. Disney for one took a dim view of that; I recall one lawsuit in which Disney sued someone for using something it created - I think it was a trademark for one of its movies, but my recollection is hazy since it was at least a decade ago.

It is very comforting to know that I will never have to worry about the DMCA or anyone gathering intellectual property from me.

Not to throw a wet blanket on your venture, but I hope you're aware of the DMCA, and other intellectual property requirements for data gathering from other sources.

In addition, many forums have strict IP terms; joining a forum often means acceptance of terms and conditions which provide that all posted material becomes the intellectual property of the website holder.

"Interest" in "education" isn't grounds for breach of IP terms.