Can something that has been written be used?

hi,

new to the board but been visiting for some time

if real life dialogue can possibly be used, can something that has been wrote on a forum be used?

what i mean is when doing some research for my sitcom/comedy drama i stumbled upon a couple of short (real life) work related stories that had been wrote on a forum. you know the thing, 'what funny things have happened to you at work' section in a forum

could an idea be used?

in one way i kinda think not simply 'cos its wrote down.

but on the other hand if the story was told to me it could be used.

any ideas?

I'd use the ideas, yeah.

But not precisely as written.

'Talent borrows, Genius steals'

I wrote that.

Plunder away.

Go for it, but change some of the wording, because, as odd as it seems, the forum poster sort of owns the copyright to it as it is written wordage.

I used to be a taxi driver where some really surreal things happened, so I used them in one of my sitcoms.

For example, a fellow taxi driver turned up at the cab office, as white as a sheet. An old boy had died in the back of his taxi.
The owner of the cab firm then asked him whether he'd got the fare off the bloke first!

That became part of the premise of the pilot.

pleased with the response, thx

don't feel so bad now

its just that the couple of stories just work so well with the characters i've got, i could visualise it whilst reading them initially, if you know what i mean

obviously speech itself will be all re-worked n' that but...

thx.