Can I legally sell a blog that operates on a free web host?

Is it a regular free webhost? Or a blog host like Tumblr? Do you use your own domain for it?

If its on a bloghost like Tumblr, i dont know about the legalities for selling it, but i wouldnt see a problem with selling or buying a popular blog on a blog service.

If you use your own domain and its just hosted on a regular freehost, then i guess you are free to do whatever you like with it.

"Nemo dat quod non habet". (Literally, nobody can give what they don't have, meaning that you can't pass on title to something you don't own).

The most you can sell, if you don't own it, is "access" to it and potentially income from it - in the form of an "account", or a "password", or whatever, together with the rights to the content (which you typically do own). Whether anyone will pay much for that - with all its typical insecurities - is another matter altogether.

What's important is to read carefully the terms of service of each such site, because in some places this is allowed and in others, it isn't. But bear in mind that those terms of service are themselves changeable, from time to time. (For example, I think at Squidoo it used to be allowed and isn't any more).

Only by having a detailed and up-to-date knowledge of the TOS, policies and procedures of each site of that kind. They do vary.

One thing that might make sense, if wanting to sell, is simply to transfer the content to something like a self-hosted WordPress blog at Byethost (good, reliable, free hosting, and upgradable), or something equivalent. That you can sell - and people do.

What you can do is sell admin access just like Alexa already mentioned. You can also move your free hosted blog to a self-hosted site and get a domain name. Moving a blog to self-hosted is not complicated and there are right ways of doing it to keep you rankings, traffic and rss subscribers.

Quit being cheap. You can get Arvixe for $4 per month. If you cannot afford $4 per month, you've got bigger issues, and should not waste your time farting around online.

The key is to stop thinking of your blog as the platform that your content is riding on. Hosting is not your blog; hence, remove your content to a platform that you can control. The intellectual property that makes up the content you're offering is where the value lies. If you want to sell that, put it on a new platform that you can control. The value lies in what you create ... not in the plate it's delivered on.

This should be a lesson and a warning to all of you that are deceived by thinking "free" hosting is a real bargain!

The best to all of you.

Steve

Is there anything criminal in selling permanent access to your profile? No.

Could there be civil ramifications from the provider for the sale? The answer is in the TOS. If the TOS answer is no, the worst they can do is sue you for $... the odds of which are about zero.

Could the provider legally shut down your blog at any time for any reason? Absolutely. If the sale violates the TOS, make sure its on your customer if it gets shut down.

Do you legally own the content? They are just providing PaaS. Unless stated otherwise in the TOS, you own everything on the site. Almost always you are the owner of the content... if they claim ownership they are not legally immunized from the legal ramifications of the content being posted. However some sites do claim ownership to your content. There are lists all over the internet... just google.