All Your Base Are Belong to Jason Calacanis?
On Jason Calacanis’s web site I see the following note: All contents copyright Jason Calacanis. I’m 99% sure that Jason can invoke copyright for a blog. But, does copyright include comments? That is, if I post something, Jason holds the copyright?
What about John Rhodes and WebWord? Well, I expect copyright for my articles, reports, blog postings, reports, and so forth. I also feel it is appropriate to use comments in various ways, such as quotes for other postings. Very mild stuff; loose interpretation.
When you post something on WebWord or any other blog, do you feel that you own it? Who holds copyright? Who should hold copyright? I suppose that this isn’t a matter of opinion but a matter of law. I should just look it up but I’d prefer that a sharper tack provide us with guidance on legal matters.
I’m surprised that this has not flared up recently. Copyright vis-à-vis blogs was a messy topic a few years back when blogging was the new kid on the block, changing the world, and killing off traditional media. Giggle. Now some of the Big Brains are moving on.
In any event…
With all the Web 2.0 hype, including user contributed content and debates about paying bloggers, isn’t this a Big Deal? I mean, I think it is 95.73% hype, but it does have some traction. Where’s the firestorm over ownership and rights and all that legal schtuff? Do I just float in the wrong circles, or what?
Is it an All Your Base Are Belong to Jason Calacanis world?
July 28th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Legally, you hold the copyright, regardless of where it is published (at least to my knowledge). So this comment is essentially mine.
The difference is perhaps not really the copyright, but usage rights. As far as I know the author will always hold the copyright, but not necessarily the usage rights.
This is of course where things get difficult.
Take YouTube. When you upload your video to YouTube, you agree that they can use it for whatever they want. You are still the copyright holder, but you no longer have the rights to decide how it can be used.
The same goes on this site. This comment is my copyright, but by providing it here I essentially release it into the public domain. Thus I cannot control what people do with it.
I think a much bigger problems is RSS feeds. When you publish you site as an RSS feed, every single item in it is copyright protected. This means that any site that republishes your RSS feed as content on their sites is a copyright violation.