Very interesting conversation are going on the internet these days about legal issues surrounding commenting on other blogs and if the blog owners have the right to show in-context link advertisements on the comments section of their blogs, there is nothing wrong with running in-context ads on your blog, but I know that almost all of you will agree that in-context advertisements are very annoying to blog visitors and it’s not a healthy thing specially when the advertisements shows non related links to the post topic. Join us on this conversation because I do have some interesting points to discuss.
I first read about this at Holly’s blog on her brilliant In-context Links? No Comment! Post, she has a very interesting way of looking at things, Holly is asking bloggers to stop using her comments by showing the ad links on them, and she said that “No one has the right to use her comments that way”. I am still wondering about the legal issue here, and how we can control that in a way that won’t lead to a trouble for any part!
Blogosphere Laws are undefined and uncertain!
Sir has responded to this in-context links issue by a very nice post to teach you How To Stop Infolinks From Appearing In Your Comments and stop annoying your blog visitors, this is a very nice tip that I recommend to you to stop losing your blog reader and commentators if you still want to use in-context ads on your blog.
Copyrights does not include the right of existence!
I have always believed that the comment are part of the blog content, when I add a comment to any blog I don’t really care or think about my comments copyrights, because the blog owners can delete it (not to publish it), and the most interesting thing is that blog owners also can edit comments on their blogs!!! You may disagree with me but tell me why do I have to care?!
Do I see some conflict in here?!
I really don’t understand what copyrights means here and how it will protect me when I post a comment on some blogs! If the commenter owns his comment then should not edit the comment without the commentator’s permission, and the feature of editing comments has to be removed from all commenting systems! In another words Disqus and WordPress and all other websites and blogging platforms is doing a big mistake by letting this feature in the hand of blogs owners! But no, actually the whole thing is not making any sense to me!
We all have Killed some comments before!
Don’t panic, this is absolutely your right not to publish comments on your blog, I personally have killed some comments before, when I think it’s a little spammy things, or when it has offended words or meanings, or even if It has a link that I don’t want to show it on my blog. I am sure that you did the same thing at least once in your blogging life! Some people will think that this is not your right to delete the already published comments, then maybe you can tell them to pay you to host this comments on your blog!
The situation will get more complicated if someone asked you to remove his comment from your blog, lots of blogs is using threaded comments which acts like a simple discussion tool, it’s a nice way to get replies to specific comment, so imagine if you have a good comment discussion running and someone asked you to remove his comment which is on the top of the tree!
To me.. It’s only a matter of respect!
I have an opinion about this and I would like to shout it out for our readers to hear what they think about this issue, my personal opinion is commenter don’t fully own his comment and has no control on it, if the commenter has ‘agreed’ to distribute it since pushed the “add comment” button he/she gives the right to the owner of the blog to use it the way he like, and he can show advertisements using this comment text as a part of the blog content, so let’s say that both of them the commenter and the blog owner is sharing this ownership together some how!
Issues on the Blogosphere are undefined and uncertain, so we have to agree on a solution for this until we can get a legal right, I also never heard that someone sued a blogger for advertising on his comment! (tell me if you know any case)
Hey.. This money is not yours!
Let’s look into this from a different angle now, let’s imagine that one day someone will knock your in-box with a surprising email asking you to pay him or share your earnings from those in-context ad links because you have used his/her comments text, what you will do?! How you will respond to this?
Does Your Blog Need a Comments Policy?
Comments are essential to any blog and it has a heavy weight in the determination of quality of blogs. After fetching some interesting articles and getting advice from bloggers friends I recommend that every blog should have a policy page.
A Question!
Considering the comments importance to any blog should I declare that I use in-context link ads in comments on my blog policy page not to have such problems when a commenter contact me and he say: Hey! Why you are using my comment for advertising?!
Yes! I think this has to be a part of your policy and every blog needs a comment policy page where you can explain the ownership of comments on your blog to guarantee the maximum protection, here is a page that has an example of comment policy page, this will help you write it.
Conclusion: Is blog comments part of my blog content?
It’s not easy to answer this question, it’s kind of complicated problem, but it has a very simple solution, I recommend to add a notice above or under the comment entry area if you are using in-context links allover your blog: ”When you post a comment on this blog, you grant us the right to modify, delete and use in-context links in your comment”
Do you still think you fully own and can control the use of comments you put on others blogs?