Who Owns Your Comments?

I think I upset Jeff Jarvis.

I didn’t mean to. No offence meant Jeff... attention is love…

Jeff is currently writing a book. I’m sure it’ll be fabulous. In fact I’d go so far as to suggest you go ahead and pre-order it safe in the knowledge you’ll get some brilliant insights and a cracking read. He’s a great thinker and the book is long overdue.

But yesterday a brief exchange of tweets got me thinking about the value of contributions, how value is shared in collaborations, and being clear about who gets what.

jeffjarvis I just wrote a chapter out of the book (the one on insurance) almost completely from blog comments. The value of collaboration! Thanks.

(Updated: Link to Jeff's original post)

davidcushman @jeffjarvis do u have a plan to share the proceeds and were commentors aware of this when posting?

jeffjarvis: @davidcushman I said it was for the book and I’m grateful for the help. I am also interviewing people and quoting docs and articles. C'mon.

and before I could respond again…

jeffjarvis: @davidcushman Do your magazines pay everyone you quote? Jeesh.

A point well made. Of course we don’t. Not about to pay you for those tweets right now, either Jeff.

But if you write an article for us, we do pay you. I’m not sure where a comment contributed to a blogpost (or a tweet for that matter) sits between those but maybe it’s not quite as black or white as Jeff suggests. Readers letters regularly win prizes, after all.

Small matter – the contributors whose thoughts get quoted in Jeff’s book will, I’m sure, regard the little bit of fame this bestows as payment or prize enough. Which is why I responded with:

davidcushman @jeffjarvis hey i only asked? u were transparent so i'm fine with that and wud actually be supportive. chill tiger

To be fair, my question had been provocative… but not altogether unreasonable. It’s not so long since a generation of content creators got not a little huffy about youtube’s founders making a pile of cash out of all those UGC video contributions in the sale to google.

So Jeff’s clarification that he’d been clear about the terms and conditions of those contributing to that particular collaboration was exactly the answer I was hoping to hear.

More importantly, the conversation raised an interesting question for me.

For a start; I have no terms and conditions relating to what might or might not be done with comments posted on my blog (I wonder how many of us do?). Nothing states that your contributions may be taken, edited and republished anywhere I want, for my own or anyone else’s financial gain. For all time.

Is it simply trust, and an expectation of generosity among bloggers that makes us comfortable with this while big media companies have to employ lawyers to ensure T&Cs give them the all clear to re-use UGC to their heart’s content? For example

Or as youtube once put it with tongue firmly in cheek:

What is the distinction that matters here?

Who owns your comments and is it important for small media (us bloggers) to be as transparent as big media (like company I work for)?

If not, why not?

Comments

[Niall Cook]

The simple answer to your title question posed is that the original author of the comment owns it, but that does not preclude someone else like Jeff from quoting it in his book (that's my understanding anyway - and if that's not the case, then me and my publisher are in BIG trouble).

This is because of something called "fair use" in the US that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders. There are similar legal precedents in other countries.

That said, Jeff would be well advised to ask permission from those commenters anyway, not only to cover his back but also because they will provide him with great feedback on his drafts as well as the first and most vocal ambassadors for his book when it is published.

[Chris Reed]

What an interesting discussion to have with Mr Jarvis. I do think that there's a lot of pretty standard media law like this that us humble bloggers should know more about... I remember back at journalism school being told that everything you create/write while in employment (at work, on their machinery) then the copyright technically belonged to them. Of course that was way way before blogs were around, but I guess there are lots of other similar rules which apply.

And I'm sure that there are some handy how to guides online, but I haven't had a nose for them...

[Stephanie Booth]

Nearly two years ago, I wrote a blog post with the same title (I'm certainly not the only one): http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2006/10/24/who-owns-your-comments/ -- the context was slightly different. In the light of the speed coComment was gathering in the blogosphere, suddenly the question of "who is allowed to do what to comments" came to the front of the scene.

More recently, Disqus has sparked similar conversations: http://blog.disqus.net/2008/05/30/a-commenters-rights/ for example.

This is a slightly different angle from the story you talk about here, but I think it would benefit from being placed in the larger discussion of "comment ownership" on blogs. I think there is something along the lines of some sort of "shared ownership", similar to what I tried to explain in "Being the Model" http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/12/16/photography-being-the-model/ (but I obviously failed, given some of the reactions I got).

This is long enough that I should probably have posted it on my blog, but I thought it might be interesting to provide some additional background to your discussion.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It was an unfair, provocative, accusatory question and I resent it, David. I am particularly shocked that you, an employee of a publishing company, said this. I am further shocked that you did not do the slightest research and see my original post where I clearly and transparently asked for help from my readers in writing my book. I'm enraged.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Niall,

This is sheer bullshit. If David had bothered to do 30 seconds of responsible journalistic research, he would have seen that I quite transparently asked my readers for help WRITING MY BOOK. He libeled me. Under British law, I might go after it. But I'm American. I believe in free speech, even for fools.

[david cushman]

All,
Thanks for the contributions to this.
Jeff. I am really sorry to enrage you. Honestly. This was not my intention. I thought I had made it clear I have a great deal of respect for your work.
However, although the question is provocative (I admit) it is also reasonable because it raises bigger issues. It's precisely because I'm an employee of a media company that this interests me and that I ask the question.
Where UGC is concerned on our sites we're really explicit about wanting to own it all. As bloggers should we be making the same provision - and if not, why not? These are fair questions that matter to more folks than you and I.
I did make clear in this article that your clarification was exactly the kind I sought.
I apologise if using this particular case as an example offends.

[gregorylent]

mystics have always said that we own nothing. not even the thoughts that come into our minds are ours. current reality is just proving them correct. gonna play hell with the guys wedded to the ipr meme though. oh well ...

[Vero Pepperrell]

Nothing quite like a bit of a firey discussion, but Jeff, I think we're all on the same side, and nobody is claiming you're stealing content. I think David's question was more rhetorical than an accusation.

I blogged on a similar topic today, with regards to large corporates trying to get their dirty mitts on naive photographers' content without giving back to the community.

BMW asking the photographer to effectively give up all rights to his photos without so much as a backlink or a name check. Totally. Utterly. Wrong.

I think it's essential that we HAVE those conversations, that we challenge each other on who owns what and who owes who what in return for using their words, images or other data. Otherwise, how are we to educate and help those who look to us early adopters and geeks for guidance?

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Cheers!!!