Unknowingly use ODP data

What is the situation if you run a directory that uses 100% user-submitted listings and people submit listings that are word-for-word from ODP? I know when I'm doing SEO I submit the same name and description to every directory so that could cause some duplication too.

Thanks.

Maybe you should talk to some legal department about these types of questions...

If the description is word-for-word from ODP it´s most probably taken from there, and thus you would be bound by the license I´d guess.

Difficult to say. Please note that - as informator said - we can't give legal advice in here. Only the AOL legal department could do so, and I dont think it's very likely you would get a response from them easily.

There was a related case quite some time ago, when someone asked if he could use the same description heused for an ODP site suggestion somewhere else. This was answered with "Yes". When suggesting an URL including Title/Description you don't give up your rights on the text. According to the ODP license statements, you just grant Netscape/AOL a nonexclusive license to use the text you suggested.

But that doesn't help you much, because you can't know if the submitter wrote the description himself or it was written by an editor...

I don't think a few of those are much of a problem, but that is just my personal oppinion.

I'm not an expert in legalese, but have a couple of "layman's viewpoints"...

A webmaster suggesting the same description to you and to the ODP is not something that you need to worry about, not just because ODP very rarely uses descriptions as suggested; no duplication. In case ODP used the suggested text as is, ODP has no copyright for the text, but does have copyright for the collection.

Someone else suggesting sites by stealing descriptions from wherever (including ODP) is a different situation, my guess is that you can get in trouble for publishing copyrighted material, even if you did not check. My feeling is that you'd probably not get legalese hate mail for at single description, but if it looks systematic.....