I read this interesting post on WebProNews, Who Owns Blog Comments, which evolved from this post (and perhaps others).
Strong opinions on either side and, of course, the Solomon-like compromising middle ground —both the blog owner and the commentor own the comments. I think the answer is clear—the commenter “owns” the comment. The reason…. copyright.
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. (Source) (emphasis added)
Furthermore, copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in a fixed or tangible form of expression. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. (ibid.) (emphasis added)
The copyright is really a bundle of rights, one of which is the right to display the work publicly.
So, the author of the work, in this case a comment, owns the copyright to that work the moment it expresses itself in a fixed or tangible form — in this case, code that appears as words on a blog post.
At best, the owner of the blog is given the right to display that work (comment) on the owner’s blog– but not anywhere else. Now, with the blog owner’s right to publicly display the comment, comes the corresponding right to un-display or delete the comment. (So, while Robert Scoble is correct in his claim of ownership, he can’t complain that the blog owner did not take good care of his work. (sorry Robert)
Anyone see it differently?
[Image note: The photo has no connection to the post so don’t waste any mental energy on it. Just thought is was a nice photo.]
