Early this Independence Day, we’re checking email & began to discuss the rights of bloggers. Kinda appropriate, I suppose. Kinda strange, to have been asleep half an hour ago. But there it is.
I’m particularly interested, not in the legal aspects of “speaking,” as it were, but in the aspects of commenting. For example: if you comment upon someone’s blog, who “owns” that comment? All blogging software provides for the deletion of comments … which would imply that, at the very least, the blogger has the “right” to mediate comments, to some extent. But there are several blog-writing packages out there (other than blogger) which allow the owner of the site to edit comments; to change them entire. This would seem to imply that your comment, once made, has become the property of the site owner.
It’s a stretch, yes, but it’s being established by precedent all over the blogsphere. Now, what I’m thinking is this: if someone edits your comment but does not also change the attribution, are they actually infringing upon your legal rights by implying that you made the statement that they are attributing to you?
To state it differently, let’s pretend that you work for the world’s largest pea-processing company. You’re commenting upon somebody’s blog, and you said said, “I like peas,” and the owner changed that statement to “I absolutely hate peas.” You are being misquoted, as it were. You could suffer all manner of ill effects, because you work for this pea-processing company, and if they find out that you hate peas, well … let’s just say that you’re going to be doing the nasty jobs for a while, at best.
So, to me, comments are still the property of the commentor, while existing upon the site at the discretion of the commentee. If you, as a commentor, may be held liable whatsoever, then the comment must be yours in property terms. Now, there’s a whole other world out there in terms of liability law, apparently, and I don’t really care about it. What I’m interested in at the moment are the questions of property; when you make a comment, who “owns” those words?
As far as I’m concerned, any comments may remain your property as long as you want them. Considering that you, as the commentor, may delete them at YOUR whim, I’d say that blogger has essentially already weighed in: if blogger is establishing law by precedent, then the commentor is the owner.
Now, off to make breakfast. And to enjoy this day full of people who don’t have to go to work. Ahh, mass leisure.
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Makes sense to me! And for the record, I LOVE peas! But you already knew that 😉
I agree with you, my comment should remain “my” comment 🙂 The only thing I don’t like is in some places I leave a comment I can’t go back and edit it or delete it, and heaven forbid I have a spelling error or a really bad grammar error I’m basically screwed. I guess I could just make another comment but then it could be so far down the list that it’s pointless 🙂
PS Hope breakfast was good!
Yes, Jackie. We know you love peas. 😉 We’re frightened by that love, but we tolerate it. 🙂
That’s the thing about the blog arena: it’s all being decided “on the fly” by the technologies, rather than any one standard being applied. In my mind, if it’s yours, you should be able to edit it. Not like email, where once it’s sent, it’s out there & can’t come back.
Ahh well. Nobody will agree until they’re forced to.
just as an aside, I love peas…on this side of the pond, they have mushy peas…not bad, I can get use to the texture…as for the legal aspects of ownership of blogger comments…it’s a huge topic of discussion, another issue up for discussion is: do other commentors on that particular post have the right to contact other commentors and continue the discussion?
Well, ownership of ideas would be what’s implied if discussion were to be “contained,” in some fashion, to the original blog post. I’m thinking that it’s not technically feasible, so it’s not going to happen.
And to all of you: we’re more into Soybeans than Peas. Didn’t plant a single pea plant this year. 🙂
Right, never understood why I as a blogger should have editing rights over comments made….but would I be infringing on a commentor if I edited their comment to correct a spelling error because I’m anal about spelling and can do so? Just a question….not that I’m anal or anything….well, not overly anal…..really….(feel free to edit that….)
Blogger doesn’t give you edit rights, so I can’t edit that – and I’m glad that I’m not even given the option, else I’d be tempted to correct punctuation & spelling – far more often than I’d be tempted to edit anything, really.