This isn't entirely true. The simple act of expressing an idea, especially over an internet medium, does not automatically subject that idea to any copyright law, especially international copyright law. Intellectual property laws have become increasingly more broad with the sheer speed and actual amount of information that can be transferred over the internet. Because of this there are numerous safeguards against this exact situation you mention. For example, when you registered here at Tip.it you agreed to an End-User Agreement. I obviouslly do not know the exact terms of that contract here off of the top of my head, but as with most forums I'd garauntee that there is a clause in that agreement that says anything you post here becomes property of Tip.it, barring it wasn't previously trademarked or under copyright. So in those terms, unless you've already gone through some sort of standard means of copyrghting information you are, in essence, giving Tip.it at least some sort of ownership over the idea if they decided to use it. (As a side-note: In America you can copyright an idea by simply putting the idea in writing and mailing it to yourself. I know it sounds absurd, but the moment the package gets postmarked and as long as you never open it, whatever is written by you is copyrighted for a period of 4 years if I remember correctly. This is also only binding to American law, not international.) Even then, cases like these are next to impossible to hold up in court. Let's say you posted an idea here at Tip.it and 3 months from now Jagex had implemented it into the game somehow... First, you have no course of action personally as you've put the idea on the internet and essentially made it free to anyone, most likely because of the user agreement you agree to on whatever forum or medium. Second, even though Tip.it explicitly says "Reproducing or copying material found on this site is not allowed." you would have one heck of a time proving that Jagex took that idea exclusively from this site. It would be too easy for them to argue that they have an experienced, dedicated staff that does nothing but research and conjure up such updates and the fact that they thought of something that happened to be mentioned somewhere else is purely coincidence. Of course, all of this is just surface discussion. You could go on for pages with the complexities of intellectual property law and international copyright standards, but hopefully this clears it up a little bit. Also, just so I don't come off as blowing smoke I am currently a law student at a legitimate university. So I may not be totally qualified to give concrete answers, but I do know a little about which I speak.