Selling Other’s Comments?

A site visitor asks:

What if someone takes your written words from various e-mails or blogs, puts them in a book and adds defaming comments of their own and then SELLS the book? I, along with a number of friends and acquaintances, have had this done to us by one person. Do we have any recourse?

I have an article that covers the topic of Online Copyright Issues, that notes that anything you write you then own the copyright to and that person, if they had any e-ethics should have contacted you for your permission to include your writings in their book.

With that said, “fair use” allows other’s to use your words or quotes as long as they are properly attributed to you in order to continue a discussion, share an opinion or disagree with your point of view. The fact they are selling a book using your comments — for commercial gain — is what makes what they are doing wrong. Click here to read the Government’s definition of Fair Use.

At this point your only recourse would be to bring legal action against the party in question and that can get very expensive fast. Another option, would be to check where their Web site is hosted and then review their hosting company’s DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) clause and make them aware that the book they are selling is infringing on your copyright by including your posts without your permission.

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