The Weblog Question
People are starting Weblogs in growing numbers, but the owner of the content isn't always clear
By John Foley
When Mark Jen started working for Google Inc. earlier this month, one of the first things he did was create a Weblog where he discussed, among other things, his impressions of a Google sales meeting. It was too much information he soon learned, and within two days, Jen removed the sensitive material from his Web site, explaining, "I goofed."
As more professionals create Weblogs, those opinion-filled Web sites where a mix of anecdote and insight can stir interest in one person's observations or an entire company's strategy, the complexities and questions are beginning to surface. Who owns Weblog content? What are the risks? And how far should employees go in sharing their thoughts?
A growing number of people are reading Weblogs, and their demographics--younger and more affluent than those who don't--make them an attractive audience, according to a November report by Forrester Research. Anxious to get involved, more technologists, marketing managers, and other business people are becoming Weblog writers, or bloggers. "Forrester envisions a day when new employees on their first day will be handed a sheet of paper with their phone number, E-mail address--and a URL for their blog," analyst Charlene Li observed in the report. That day is closer than you think.
Two weeks ago, Randy Baseler, VP of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, started a Weblog, where he offered Boeing's point of view on competitor Airbus' new supersized airplane, the A380. A few weeks earlier, General Motors Corp. vice chairman Bob Lutz launched the FastLane Blog, where he posted observations from the floor of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The trend is forcing IT, human resources, and legal departments to come up to speed quickly. The issue of who owns the copyrights to Weblogs, in particular, seems to have caught some people off guard. Mark Potts, chief technology officer for Hewlett-Packard's management software business, says that he would be surprised if his Weblog, which is hosted on HP's Web site, was copyrighted by his employer. "That's an interesting question," he says.
But, after checking the company's policy, an HP spokeswoman discovered that the rights to Potts' content belong to the company and not the CTO. "HP owns the copyright for anything written by an HP employee published on an HP Web site, including blog entries," the spokeswoman says via E-mail.
For companies that require blogging as a function of an employee's job, the issues of ownership and oversight are easier to establish. The content typically belongs to the employer in the same way that work-related E-mail does, and the Weblogs can be monitored and even edited. Increasingly, however, people are writing Weblogs on subjects closely related to their jobs, yet without official endorsements from their employers. Such sites can fall into a "fuzzy, gray area" of copyright law, says Cydney Tune, an intellectual-property lawyer with law firm Pillsbury Winthrop.
Ownership is important because Weblog material has both potential value and liability. "I would think the employer would want to own the content," Tune says. "As a general rule, it's better for employers to own everything that the employee creates because you never know when it's going to become important to your business."
Online advertising, a loyal following of readers, and even book deals are among the benefits that can accrue. Conversely, the list of employees who have been fired for missteps keeps getting longer. Related issues include how Weblogs might affect a company's reputation or trademarks, and, as in Jen's case, the potential disclosure of sensitive information.
It's also possible that readers will misconstrue personal Weblogs written by employees as a company's official position. "Regardless of how many disclaimers you put on your Weblog that your content is private and not related to your employer, people will treat your statements as representing your company," writes Werner Vogels in a Jan. 6 posting on his All Things Distributed Weblog. A few days later, Vogels, an employee of Amazon.com Inc. who had begun his Weblog while a researcher at Cornell University, disclosed that he had been promoted to chief technology officer at the company.
Amazon's communications department didn't publicly disclose Vogels appointment as CTO. That Vogels did so himself speaks to the potential for professionals to reveal new and relevant information that would otherwise have no outlet other than word of mouth. Yet his high-profile position also means Vogels will be more circumspect in what he says on his Weblog. "It is obvious that in that role, I have to be more thoughtful in how I use this medium," he writes. The vetting can reach the highest levels inside a company: According to a recent article in Fortune, Sun Microsystems' opinionated CEO, Scott McNealy, was urged not to blog after showing insiders some of his writing samples.
Forrester Research advises companies to provide guidelines not only for company-sanctioned Weblogs, but also for employees who do them on their own time. The IT research firm even recommends that managers occasionally view the personal Weblogs of subordinates to see what they're saying. "Respecting existing confidentiality agreements and companies' secrets is a no-brainer--and not doing so should clearly be grounds for firing," Li wrote.
Business bloggers need to consider how their content gets distributed. A growing number of Weblog readers are using news-aggregation services to browse multiple Weblogs from a single source. But there's a simmering controversy over how news aggregators use Really Simple Syndication technology to do that. RSS is a format that makes it possible to automate the process of pushing content from one Web site to another or to an RSS reader on a desktop PC.
Intellectual-property lawyer Martin Schwimmer recently cut ties between his Weblog, where he writes about trademark matters, and Bloglines.com's aggregation service. Bloglines "is not authorized to reproduce my content nor to change the appearance of my pages, which it does," Schwimmer wrote on Jan. 14. The issue was compounded by the fact that Bloglines published Schwimmer's entire blog entries, not just summaries, making it less likely that readers would visit his site.
As RSS technology becomes a more popular way for people to access Web content, Schwimmer expects other Weblog authors to run into the same problem. RSS feeds are about to become "the next big thing" in information access, he says. "You're going to have the classic 'who owns [intellectual property]?' problem."
Blogger Bob Roudebush, a Microsoft employee who writes a personal Weblog, takes his concerns a step further: "Copyrights are going to kill Weblogs as we know them. Plain and simple," he wrote in a posting on the RSS-feed debate. In a follow-up E-mail exchange, Roudebush says, "As we start to consume information in different ways, it becomes very hard to tell how content is being licensed (protected) and what rights I have to use it."
Yet many companies haven't drafted formal Weblog policies, including Microsoft, where hundreds of employees blog at various sites without specific guidelines. Microsoft trusts employees to use good judgment in adhering to its employee rule book when it comes to blogging. "When talking about Microsoft topics, I try to stick to the guidance from my manager with respect to blogging, which is basically 'be smart,'" Microsoft technical evangelist Robert Scoble says via E-mail. Scoble sometimes disagrees with Microsoft policies on his popular Scobleizer site.
But Microsoft's informal approach may not be enough as the number of bloggers at the company grows, especially since the line between "personal" Weblogs and those done as part of the job can be hard to distinguish. For example, Heather Hamilton's "Marketing At Microsoft" Weblog lists Microsoft-sponsored career events alongside reminiscences of her college days. In addition to such unofficial journals, Microsoft publishes "team" Weblogs on MSDN.com, and a few of the company's executives write Weblogs, too. Bill Gates is considering starting one. And last month, Microsoft began testing a hosted Weblog service called MSN Spaces on MSN.com that has already generated 1.5 million accounts.
Despite a corporate obsession with intellectual property, Microsoft's policy is hard to decipher when it comes to ownership of Weblog content. Microsoft allows employees such as Scoble and Hamilton to maintain rights to their personal blogs, even though it links to their Web sites from MSDN.com. On the other hand, the copyright notice on MSN Spaces appears to give Microsoft certain rights over the content hosted by its service. When asked to explain the company's policy, a spokesperson says, "The question of ownership of copyright for blog content is complicated, and the answer depends on a number of factors." Another puts it more bluntly: "It's something that doesn't have an answer."
Why the waffling? It's possible Microsoft doesn't want to mess with a good thing. Employees who blog may pour more creative energy into their work when the copyrights are in their name. More than a legal fine point, the rights may act as an incentive--any benefits that accrue, accrue to the blogger.
In addition, bloggers may feel a greater sense of independence, and outsiders may perceive Weblogs as being more objective, when copyrighted in the writer's name. That's meaningful because one of the defining characteristics of personal Weblogs is their unfiltered viewpoint. A Weblog with Microsoft's copyright on it might be more valuable to Microsoft but less valued by the people reading it.
For all those reasons and more, some employers may not want to be too closely associated with employee Weblogs. "With ownership comes responsibility, and, in the case of blogs, there's very little control in a classical editorial sense," Forrester's Li says in an E-mail interview.
The big question is whether Weblogs are done in the "course and scope" of an employee's work or as extracurricular activity, intellectual-property lawyer Tune says. At Microsoft, a few current job openings list "participating actively in the developer community through Weblogs" as one responsibility. The openings are for what Microsoft calls "evangelists." For people like this, where contributing to a Weblog is part of the job, Microsoft may retain the copyrights. Several Weblogs on Microsoft's MSDN.com site carry the company's copyright symbol, though many others don't. The Windows Security Logging Weblog, described as representing "thoughts from the Windows auditing team," bears a copyright only in the name of "Eric."
At Microsoft and elsewhere, some Weblogs don't bear copyright notices at all. That doesn't mean no one owns the content, only that it's unclear who does. The Weblog of Sun Microsystems president and chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz doesn't carry a copyright notice: "I'm fine with anyone using the content," explains Schwartz, via E-mail. "The broader the distribution and the more people who build on these ideas, the better."
Sun's copyright policies are contained in fine print at the bottom of blogs.sun.com, a Web site for "any Sun employee to write about anything." The company allows reuse of Weblog content, but its official terms specify that redistribution is allowed only for personal use and when a permission notice is included, among other stipulations.
GM's FastLane blog uses a Creative Commons license, a popular alternative to a standard copyright that lets the licenser set the terms under which content is reused. A blogger, for instance, can require that anyone who redistributes content must attribute that content to the author and not use it for commercial purposes. Yet, it's "not a priority for us to copyright" the dialogue on the site, says Michael Wiley, director of new media with GM Communications. "The FastLane blog is a grassroots conversation with the marketplace," Wiley says via E-mail. "Copyrighting conversations in the blogosphere is equivalent to checking one's credentials at the door."
And just because the highly recognizable copyright symbol appears on a Web site doesn't always make it clear who controls what. The terms of use for Microsoft's MSN Spaces service claims "all contents of the MSN Web Sites" are copyrighted by Microsoft or its suppliers and that users grant Microsoft permission to copy, distribute, edit, and sublicense their postings. Does that mean MSN bloggers relinquish some of their own copyrights? Despite multiple requests for clarification, Microsoft has been unable to provide any.
For now, few business bloggers seem overly concerned about the legal fine points. But it may be only a matter of time before the copyright question becomes a copyright issue. "It will become important if liability arises out of it or if it becomes extremely valuable," Tune says. Given the soaring popularity of Weblogs, both scenarios seem all but inevitable.
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The Weblog Question-Who Owns It?
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The Weblog Question-Who Owns It?
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The Weblog Question-Who Owns It?
A very informative read....
I hadnt realised that CEO's and regular people at companies were writing their own blogs. The idea of reading what the CEO of a company i look up to, or a person within an organization whose sucess i wish to have for myself does appeal.
However, the argument over intellectual property is worrying. It seems as though its another way for people to be fired.....a bad day at the office, a few to many drinks and the wrong person reads your blog the next morning...well, it gives too many opportunities for something to blow up in your face.
A company may well hand me my email along with staff blogging account one day, but i think i'd prefer to decline blogging. It seems like a good way to relax after a long day - churning out witty observations and dazzling people with my keen intellect. Indeed, it might even open the window of opportunity should my boss ever read it and think to promote me. But, to me, the risks of being fired or penalised far outweigh blogging.
Unfortunately, with our "lets slap a law suit on them" society it wont be too long before a high profile case concerning this appears accross our tv screens and is splashed in the newspapers. Someone is bound to get fired - indeed the article states that some already have - and one, like the lady who spilt hot coffee on herself and sued McDonalds because they didnt tell her it was hot - will take their employer to court. And, because of the fuzzy grey areas mentioned, more than likely win, whether it be in court or an out of court settlement.
So i'm sure after months of deliberations many companies will immediately draw a hard or at least clear line of what they expect to and not to see in an employers blog - especially if they are the ones hosting the blogging service. I would also expect them to state quite blunty that they own all the content and can do whatever they please with it - indeed, the blogging section here will probably become riddled with copyrights and do's and dont's....but if thats whats needed to protect a companies interests than thats great.
I would rather have many restrictions on me should i write a KillaBlog than none. I dont want to see a perfectly innocent remark sink some contract we have or destroy a business opportunity because the competition read someones blog and beat us to the finish line.
As for the other side of blogging - the young and afluent market it attracts. I have noticed that many young people almost seem to foam at the mouth when the word blog is mentioned lol - no offense intented to our killabloggers.....maybe my age is showing.
It seems to me like a blog for the younger generation (compared to those CEO's i mentioned earlier) is basically an open diary. Now i was never any good at keeping a diary, so i dont suppose i'd remember to update my blog.
If i wanted to read someones blog - which in many ways does resemble a diary , then i'd rather have the fun of sneaking into their room at night lol....it was all part of the thrill of reading someones secrets. The problem with those observations and feelings spilled all over the web is the potential they create to hurt others. Thats why you usually hid your diary and had a lock on it! lol.
Also, the potential for disaster aside.....if i want to know how your feeling or what happened with your day, i would rather interact with you - ask you. Hear you impersonate the person that made you laugh today, watch the stupid faces you probably pull while becoming the storyteller.
The use i see for a blog in the younger generation and for those who use it just to tell everyone about their day is this: those who cannot afford long distance calls, or dont have the time to spend hours catching up on the phone.
I have a sister who lives in England, i live in America....i would love it if she kept a blog. I might not want to read about her all night drinking parties or how she failed an exam, but it would be a great way for me to see whats happening in her life. I could check every day or week, and set aside the time to sit down and read it. I'd probably post replies/comments for her to read too. To me, that would be an amazing way to use a blog - indeed those who blog here may have found it a great way to stop their Granny from calling - she's busy smiling at the computer screen reading all about your day. It seems almost the same as writing a letter.
Either way, if i did write a blog, just as with this ub3r long post, i fully accept that KillaNet has the final say as to what stays and what goes. I hope it never gets to the point here that when a member writes a blog they have a loooooong list of rules to check back on to make sure they havent broken any guildelines. If blogging -anywhere- does get to that point, then i think we only have those who use that service to blame.
Yep, i'm sure i offended everyone, so i'll get off my soapbox now and wait for the replies. On the plus side, this is probably the longest post i've ever made - yay for wordcount!!!!
Nem
I hadnt realised that CEO's and regular people at companies were writing their own blogs. The idea of reading what the CEO of a company i look up to, or a person within an organization whose sucess i wish to have for myself does appeal.
However, the argument over intellectual property is worrying. It seems as though its another way for people to be fired.....a bad day at the office, a few to many drinks and the wrong person reads your blog the next morning...well, it gives too many opportunities for something to blow up in your face.
A company may well hand me my email along with staff blogging account one day, but i think i'd prefer to decline blogging. It seems like a good way to relax after a long day - churning out witty observations and dazzling people with my keen intellect. Indeed, it might even open the window of opportunity should my boss ever read it and think to promote me. But, to me, the risks of being fired or penalised far outweigh blogging.
Unfortunately, with our "lets slap a law suit on them" society it wont be too long before a high profile case concerning this appears accross our tv screens and is splashed in the newspapers. Someone is bound to get fired - indeed the article states that some already have - and one, like the lady who spilt hot coffee on herself and sued McDonalds because they didnt tell her it was hot - will take their employer to court. And, because of the fuzzy grey areas mentioned, more than likely win, whether it be in court or an out of court settlement.
So i'm sure after months of deliberations many companies will immediately draw a hard or at least clear line of what they expect to and not to see in an employers blog - especially if they are the ones hosting the blogging service. I would also expect them to state quite blunty that they own all the content and can do whatever they please with it - indeed, the blogging section here will probably become riddled with copyrights and do's and dont's....but if thats whats needed to protect a companies interests than thats great.
I would rather have many restrictions on me should i write a KillaBlog than none. I dont want to see a perfectly innocent remark sink some contract we have or destroy a business opportunity because the competition read someones blog and beat us to the finish line.
As for the other side of blogging - the young and afluent market it attracts. I have noticed that many young people almost seem to foam at the mouth when the word blog is mentioned lol - no offense intented to our killabloggers.....maybe my age is showing.
It seems to me like a blog for the younger generation (compared to those CEO's i mentioned earlier) is basically an open diary. Now i was never any good at keeping a diary, so i dont suppose i'd remember to update my blog.
If i wanted to read someones blog - which in many ways does resemble a diary , then i'd rather have the fun of sneaking into their room at night lol....it was all part of the thrill of reading someones secrets. The problem with those observations and feelings spilled all over the web is the potential they create to hurt others. Thats why you usually hid your diary and had a lock on it! lol.
Also, the potential for disaster aside.....if i want to know how your feeling or what happened with your day, i would rather interact with you - ask you. Hear you impersonate the person that made you laugh today, watch the stupid faces you probably pull while becoming the storyteller.
The use i see for a blog in the younger generation and for those who use it just to tell everyone about their day is this: those who cannot afford long distance calls, or dont have the time to spend hours catching up on the phone.
I have a sister who lives in England, i live in America....i would love it if she kept a blog. I might not want to read about her all night drinking parties or how she failed an exam, but it would be a great way for me to see whats happening in her life. I could check every day or week, and set aside the time to sit down and read it. I'd probably post replies/comments for her to read too. To me, that would be an amazing way to use a blog - indeed those who blog here may have found it a great way to stop their Granny from calling - she's busy smiling at the computer screen reading all about your day. It seems almost the same as writing a letter.
Either way, if i did write a blog, just as with this ub3r long post, i fully accept that KillaNet has the final say as to what stays and what goes. I hope it never gets to the point here that when a member writes a blog they have a loooooong list of rules to check back on to make sure they havent broken any guildelines. If blogging -anywhere- does get to that point, then i think we only have those who use that service to blame.
Yep, i'm sure i offended everyone, so i'll get off my soapbox now and wait for the replies. On the plus side, this is probably the longest post i've ever made - yay for wordcount!!!!
Nem
Last edited by Adrasteia on Sat Feb 05, 2005 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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mobil1_oils
- Hero Member
- Posts: 1873
- Joined: Sun May 09, 2004 6:42 am
The Weblog Question-Who Owns It?
[b][i][color=\"gray\"][font=\"tahoma\"]Well, i'm almost positive i missed something in both of these posts, but nem, as you said in your reply post, "it's not long before a major lawsuit arises from a blog entry" or something similar, the fact is, it already has, and more than once.
The main one i remember, was written by an employee at Delta Airlines. She started her blog months back titled [url=\"http://queenofsky.journalspace.com/\"]Diary of a Flight Attendant[/url] (you will now notice it is a "Diary of a FIRED Flight Attendant) and decided that she had quite a few people reading it and wanting to read more, she saw the potential to make an earning off it. So she placed a few adverts here and there on her blog, the google ones and what not, and started earning an income. Later this month she decided to put forward the idea of her blog being officially sponsored by Delta Airlines, they declined, but this also meant they had the address of her blog, and obviously someone high up was reading it.
Eventually she posted some pictures of herself on her blog in her uniform, they were slightly revealing but nothing over the top, inside an empty delta airlines plane. One of the "higher up's" saw these pics and immediately slapped her with a lawsuit, and fired her while still suing her for damages to the companys image (to be quite honest, them firing her rather than asking her to remove the photos looks worse on them than having the photos there themselves).
I doubt this is the only lawsuit that has arised from blogging, and i doubt it will be the last, it is a shame that she lost her job over this, yes the pictures were revealing and yes they probably shouldn't have been posted, but was it really grounds for dismissal?
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The main one i remember, was written by an employee at Delta Airlines. She started her blog months back titled [url=\"http://queenofsky.journalspace.com/\"]Diary of a Flight Attendant[/url] (you will now notice it is a "Diary of a FIRED Flight Attendant) and decided that she had quite a few people reading it and wanting to read more, she saw the potential to make an earning off it. So she placed a few adverts here and there on her blog, the google ones and what not, and started earning an income. Later this month she decided to put forward the idea of her blog being officially sponsored by Delta Airlines, they declined, but this also meant they had the address of her blog, and obviously someone high up was reading it.
Eventually she posted some pictures of herself on her blog in her uniform, they were slightly revealing but nothing over the top, inside an empty delta airlines plane. One of the "higher up's" saw these pics and immediately slapped her with a lawsuit, and fired her while still suing her for damages to the companys image (to be quite honest, them firing her rather than asking her to remove the photos looks worse on them than having the photos there themselves).
I doubt this is the only lawsuit that has arised from blogging, and i doubt it will be the last, it is a shame that she lost her job over this, yes the pictures were revealing and yes they probably shouldn't have been posted, but was it really grounds for dismissal?
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The Weblog Question-Who Owns It?
It might not have been grounds for dismissal mobes, but i think the point i was kinda arriving at in my post is that blogging is risky.....not only because you have the potential to hurt others with one snide remark, but if you dont think things through carefully you could easily end up in a certain creek with no paddle. Even on personal blogs, like those offered to us through Killablogging could put the person who pays the bills in a difficult situation. Thats why i dont want a blog, i do enough dumb things without having to type them for all to see! lol....I'd rather not put myself in the position where i could lose any of the priveleges i enjoy here, and i'm sure Ada wouldnt enjoy having to reprimand me.
At least.......i dont think she would:S Moppy might enjoy bopping me on the head though lol
Nem
At least.......i dont think she would:S Moppy might enjoy bopping me on the head though lol
Nem
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mobil1_oils
- Hero Member
- Posts: 1873
- Joined: Sun May 09, 2004 6:42 am
The Weblog Question-Who Owns It?
[b][i][color=\"gray\"][font=\"tahoma\"]Yer, i understand what you're getting at, i spose anyone who blogs has to really check and doublecheck exactly what they're saying, and the point is people can sue for pretty much anything and win these days. Anyone not willing to risk it, such as yourself, would be better to stay well away from them untill they have a better understanding of exactly what they can and can't do, and the point is, with rules and laws changing every day, we can never really fully understand exactly what we can and can't say.
The example i offered (Queen of Sky) was an independantly hosted blog (similar to one hosted by KillaBlogs), it wasn't company provided, but the fact is it was discovered by the company and they felt that what was on there was an inappropriate image for the company, and rather than asking her to remove it, they simply suspended her for 3 weeks (as soon as she was suspended she removed the images anyway) and then was fired. If you're one of those people that just do things for the "Spur of the moment" then probably a public blog isn't the best idea.
But to be brutally honest, these days anyone is liable to be sued just for walking down the street, people can sue you if they believe your clothes are inappropriate, people can even sue you for accidentally bumping into them and making them spill their coffee... the point being lawsuits have gotten to a ridiculous point in time where everyone is money hungry and just wants to extract money out of anyone they don't know. [/b][/i][/color][/font]
The example i offered (Queen of Sky) was an independantly hosted blog (similar to one hosted by KillaBlogs), it wasn't company provided, but the fact is it was discovered by the company and they felt that what was on there was an inappropriate image for the company, and rather than asking her to remove it, they simply suspended her for 3 weeks (as soon as she was suspended she removed the images anyway) and then was fired. If you're one of those people that just do things for the "Spur of the moment" then probably a public blog isn't the best idea.
But to be brutally honest, these days anyone is liable to be sued just for walking down the street, people can sue you if they believe your clothes are inappropriate, people can even sue you for accidentally bumping into them and making them spill their coffee... the point being lawsuits have gotten to a ridiculous point in time where everyone is money hungry and just wants to extract money out of anyone they don't know. [/b][/i][/color][/font]
Last edited by mobil1_oils on Wed Feb 09, 2005 12:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
The Weblog Question-Who Owns It?
I agree....you hit the nail on the head about having to double check everything you write in a blog. I dont even have the patience to hit "caps lock" when posting, so i know making sure everything i put in my blog doesnt conflict with the goals of killablogs or put me in any danger of being sued from another would be a little too much lol.
Nem
Nem