February 15, 2005
Who owns blog comments?
The question of who owns comments has recently come up several times in conversation. This is a fairly straight-forward copyright issue.
The law of copyright gives the authors of original works exclusive right to publish or reproduce those works. Furthermore, copyright protection arises the moment an original work (a web page, ad copy, essay, blog comment, etc.) is published.
The copyright analysis here is pretty simple. First, the author of a blog comment creates an original work when he/she writes the comment. This, of course, assumes that the comment is in fact original and does not infringe the copyrights of another. Second, copyright protection is triggered once the comment is published, or in this case, posted to the blog. Contrary to popular belief, no additional steps (for instance, recording a copy of your work with the United States Copyright Office) are required before authors gain copyright protection. Thus, under copyright law, the blog comment author is the owner of the comment and his/her copyrights are triggered at the moment the comment is added to the blog.
The consequences of this simple analysis could be painful for blog operators.
First, the author of a blog comment could request that his/her comment be removed from a blog. While it is an easy process to remove a comment, the harm to a blog could be substantial. Especially if the comment removed is central to the community d iscussion/dialogue around a given topic. This could severely impact the value of a blog and reduce its following/readership.
Second, many blog operators make money by running contextual display ads on the same page as comments. The author of a comment could claim that a portion of the blog’s advertising dollars belongs to him because his comment is helping to generate the ad revenue.
Third, in the course of performing maintenance on a blog or when a blog is moved to a new server - there is likely an additional copy of blog comments made in the transition. While this can be viewed as a trivial matter, it could technically constitute a copyright violation. This issue becomes the more problematic for companies with deep pockets. Keep in mind that authors may seek compensation from those who make unauthorized copies or reproductions of their works.
There are likely many other scenarios where blog operators are vulnerable because they do not own the comments on their blogs.
One possible solution is for blog operators to obtain a license to all blog comments. A Terms of Service that provides the blog operator a license to blog comments is one potential way to accomplish this. Under this approach, the authors of blog comments retain the copyright in their original works, but the blog operator obtains a non-exclusive, royalty free license to use and publicly display all blog comments posted to his/her blog. Here is a sample Terms of Service - see Section 6 for more on licensing.
Posted by charles at 12:01 AM | Comments (9)
February 14, 2005
Fired for Blogging: Public, Persistent & Viral
Techdirt points out that bloggers are not getting fired for blogging per se. Rather they are getting fired for what they say on their blogs.
This point is well-taken -- bloggers are not getting fired simply because they are blogging. They are getting canned because their blog posts contains a) sensitive company information or b) comments that damage the company's image.
However, it is important to point out the firings are happening precisely because these statements are made on blogs - which are highly public, persistent and viral.
Had the same statements been made in traditional pencil and paper journals, the employees would still be working for their respective companies. Furthermore, had the same statements been made verbally - at the water cooler, or even to a company manager, these employees would likely still have their jobs.
A statement made on a blog is fundamentally different than a statement made through other channels. First, a blog post is a very public statement - meaning that anybody with a computer + internet can access it. Second, the statement is persistent -- meaning that it is available for viewing in its raw, undiluted state forever (or at least until it is deleted from a weblog). Third, the viral nature of weblogs means that a blog post can be viewed/reviewed by thousands of people in a very short period of time.
Yes, people are being fired for what they say on blogs, not because they are blogging per se. However, it is the public, persistent and viral nature of weblogs that makes companies especially edgy and sensitive about what their employees are blogging.
Posted by charles at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2005
Hey Blogger, You're Fired!
More reports of bloggers losing their jobs. The most famous firings to date involve a Delta Airlines stewardess, a Microsoft temporary worker, a Friendster programmer, and a Starbucks barrista.
The growing number of blog-related firings emphasizes the need for companies to implement blogging policies. Just as company email policies were uncharted territory ten years ago, blogging polices are uncommon today.
To date the reported firings seem to fall into two categories: a) blogging that reveals cofidential/sensitive corporate information and b) blogging that casts a negative light on the company. These two issues need to be clearly addressed in any corporate blogging policy.
Charlene Li's sample blog policy covers the basic issues.
Posted by charles at 11:47 PM | Comments (1)