As I understand copyright, we own the copyright to any message we post, but for a compilation (ie thread), the complete thread and the forum of threads would be copyright Max/Mudcat.

This would be similar to a book collection wherein different authors' material is copyright by the author or another copyright holder, but the collection as an entity would be copyright by that particular publisher.

I think that's where CompuServer, AOL, and other places like that put their copyright on everything.