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able of contents and introduction from the guide Law of The Blog, published September 10, 2007. 72 pages, PDF format, $9.95. This is U.S. law; it touches on laws in other countries, and also describes how foreign laws affect American bloggers.
Table of Contents
Introduction from the guide Law of The Blog:
Why write a whole guide specifically for bloggers? There is information posted all over the Internet. That's exactly the reason for this guide. Online information about laws that apply to blogging is fragmented, often inconsistent, and sometimes just wrong. As Albert Einstein supposedly said, "Things should be as simple as they can be, but no simpler." A lot of articles and posts about bloggers' rights are "… simpler than they can be."
Furthermore, few bloggers have been pummeled by editors, copyeditors, and in the oft-used phrase of writers, "a room full of libel lawyers". You may not be seeing the red flags. I hope that you will after reading this guide.
So, what may be the most important part of this guide:
One: Like publishing in general, blogging has its perils, and your potential enemies include businesses, government, non-profits – indeed organizations of all kinds – along with kooks who will spend their last dime to "get you", billionaires who will spend their spare change to muzzle you, and ordinary people you may have harmed because you didn't think things through.
Potential enemies can also join forces. I see this most often in rural areas, with Good Old Boy networks. It also happens in the major leagues, except it's usually a lot harder to prove. Long before the WWW, a bold lad tried to take over Chemical Bank, not knowing who the controlling interests were, and staggered away with very little left but his sense of humor, commenting "I always knew there was an Establishment, but I used to think I was part of it."
Two: Your potential friends are not nearly so clear. Other bloggers who support your position can be good friends if you're being threatened with a lawsuit – if enough blogs take up the same position, even a large corporation may decide to back away from a growing public relations nightmare.
However, there are also many people supporting social or economic theories such as "information wants to be free", and legal theories that would give bloggers all the First Amendment protections of a major newspaper (without the responsibilities). There is also the "anti-copyright" position. I haven't seen an "unlimited defamation" position, but it may be out there.
Be aware that copyright law is quite strong, and defamation law is in more confusion that it has been in centuries. If your blog is depending on new theories, your decisions should factor in your own interests, both short- and long-term. Do not assume the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) or CDA (Communications Decency Act) will protect you; as Bob Dylan wrote, "... the wheel's still in spin." The ACLU might cover your legal costs if they consider you a good "test case" – and if they consider your case a Constitutional issue. This means that while the ACLU might intervene for a defamation or Patriot Act case, they probably won't for a copyright issue.
Right now a lot of the safety lies in numbers – there are many bloggers – and confusion in the Establishment.
Three: The long arm of the law is trying to reach everywhere on the Internet. Think twice before you assume that national boundaries insulate you from legal action. (This guide covers specific examples.)
Four: In my opinion a lot of laws that have been around for decades will turn out to be fully applicable to the Internet – notably copyright law. Defamation law will change, I think, but that's not because blogs are so different from other forms of publishing – it's because defamation law is a disaster area, and blogs and other online posts are going to be a driving force in redefining defamation law (through litigation, resulting court decisions, and possibly changes in law at the state and Federal levels). Since you are probably reading this guide for facts rather than opinions, my opinion is in the Appendix: "Where's It All Going?"
Five: This guide doesn't address the subject of posting indiscretions about your employer, industry, neighbors, family, or yourself, except where there are legal issues. "The company I work for sucks" is not very defamatory, but might not help you find your next job.
Six: The guide errs on the side of safety. It is closer to lawyerly gloom-and-doom (FUD) than it is to Internet publish-and-be-happy. You could go crazy worrying about every possibility – my basic hope is that your subconscious will absorb enough to warn you before you go out on a limb, so you can decide whether to take a risk with your eyes wide open.