Yes. However whether or not it has protections under copyright is not always clear. Likely your comment is too short and simple to be protected. But if it can’t be protected claiming to grant a license to that work doesn’t change it.
Basically by adding this note they are effectively granting a license to the work. There is no situation in which granting a license can restrict how a work (which is effectively maximum protection).
Why wouldn’t it be? It’s just as much a textual medium as a PDF, or a book, for that matter. Hell, any file on a computer can be read as characters. I could type Homer’s Odyssey in a series of comments, or the source code to DOOM, or the color values of every pixel of every frame of a video I took of my friend chasing a duck.
Because certain types of text aren’t actually copyrightable. You can’t copyright a fact, for one.
Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.
For some of those (ideas, systems, or methods of operation) you need a patent. Even with the copyright clause in a comment, it might not be valid. At least concerning US laws.
Is an internet comment a ‘written work’ though?
Yes. However whether or not it has protections under copyright is not always clear. Likely your comment is too short and simple to be protected. But if it can’t be protected claiming to grant a license to that work doesn’t change it.
Basically by adding this note they are effectively granting a license to the work. There is no situation in which granting a license can restrict how a work (which is effectively maximum protection).
Why wouldn’t it be? It’s just as much a textual medium as a PDF, or a book, for that matter. Hell, any file on a computer can be read as characters. I could type Homer’s Odyssey in a series of comments, or the source code to DOOM, or the color values of every pixel of every frame of a video I took of my friend chasing a duck.
Because certain types of text aren’t actually copyrightable. You can’t copyright a fact, for one.
For some of those (ideas, systems, or methods of operation) you need a patent. Even with the copyright clause in a comment, it might not be valid. At least concerning US laws.