There has been a debate running at Weblog Tools Collection for a little while about the ownership of comments that are made on a blog. I have done a (very) little research into the state of affairs in the UK and this is what I have found.

Note that my research focuses on the UK.

Copyright protection applies, independently of the medium used to record it, to material that is the result of independent intellectual effort, as soon as it is recorded in writing. In the case of literary works the author is the copyright owner until ownership is transferred or expires (generally after 70 years following the death of the author).

You could argue about the extent to which a comment is the result of independent intelectual effort. I found notes that suggest a work might not be considered original if there hadn’t been sufficient skill or labour expended in its creation. Ultimately it would be up to a court to decide.

As important as the existence of copyright is the license to use the content. Even if licensing is never discussed there is a strong argument that an implied license exists where the circumstances suggest that the copyright holder expected the work to be used in the way it was.

This is very likely to apply to comments as the commenter is providing their content for the express purpose of the blogger publishing it. Whether the commenter expects that the comment might be re-used elsewhere on the site is another matter but the principle of fair dealing ( I think this is similar in result to fair use in the US ) allows the work to be used without a license for criticism or review and so this may apply.

The following is taken from the UK Intellectual Property Office Website:

Fair dealing has been interpreted by the courts on a number of occasions by looking at the economic impact on the copyright owner of the use; where the economic impact is not significant, the use may count as fair dealing. So, it is probably within the scope of the above fair dealing exception to make single photocopies of short extracts of a copyright work for certain purposes, that is, non-commercial research or private study, criticism or review, reporting current events, and so on.

I think, for the UK at least, this makes the ownership of comments clear. It is with the commenter. But, in most cases, the commenter should be able to argue implied license to use it within the bounderies of normal comment usage, or Fair Dealing if they want to use it as the subject of a discussion.

I’m not sure how the cross-border nature of blogs affects the laws that apply. I think that since I am publishing this blog from within the UK, the comment is also published within the UK, and so the UK copyright laws can be used, but not to the exclusion of others since it can also be downloaded outside the UK.

Finally, note that I have made an addition to my previously non-existent comment policy. I don’t think it really changes anything but it is useful to notice it.