My XYZZY, my rules.

Charles Cooper of CNET wrote Monday an article A commenter’s Bill of Rights? Let’s think first concerning whether or not comments made on a blog belong to the blog owner or the commenter and/or whether a commenter has any rights with respect to their ability to manage what they’ve said.

There is an old Internet saying my server, my rules or more precisely with respect to the topic at hand my blog, my rules. If I own, operate, and pay for the hosting of a web site or blog, then any content generated on that web site belongs me, thus comments left on my blog would belong to me, with proper attribution to the commenter of course (otherwise why bother having comments at all). If someone wants to save and/or protect their comments, then they should use their own blog and link back to the source article or comment to form the thread of discussion for readers.

My blog, my rules is a question of simplicity and easy of management of content. To do otherwise would be chaos.

What about issues of liable? The Internet has already seen cases where blog owners linking back to defamatory articles have been held liable, even though they did not write the original article. As a person running a blog, I need to be able to manage the content, especially when someone else contributes commentary, in order to protect myself legally. I do not think blog owners will have the same protection as an ISP or social network site (ie. America’s “safe habour” provisions). What happens when the blog owner and the commenter live in different countries, each with different laws with respect to freedom of speech and copyright?

Consider too comment spam. If commenters had rights to their utterances on blogs and you delete or edit a comment that is spam, would you be liable in some manner? A blogger has more risk in terms of hosting costs, what they publish, and general reputation, such that they must have ownership and control of what is said on their sites, especially when it is an opposing opinion. Commenters are more like hecklers in a comedy club audience.

Probably the best solution is to disallow blog comments altogether. Force people to remain silent or use they’re own blogs or web sites to voice their views in response to articles. At least then each blogger takes equal responsibility for what is said in public.