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Copyright can consist in aggregations of publically available data - the usual example is a telephone directory. You're not breaking copyright to copy a single number but to copy the book as is you are.
I know of forums where there's a copyright notice at the bottom of the page. When queried on one of these the site owners stated that whilst an individual has copyright over their own contributions the site has copyright over the page as a page - so you couldn't just copy a thread for example. Also licensing the site to use your individual posts in this way was part of the TOS you agreed to when signing up.
There was some sort of controversy over this at Slashdot a few years ago and I forget the details. Anyway now there's a notice saying you own your own comments.
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