J.R.McHale

The Citizen Media Law Project’s short primer on copyright and fair use in the context of citizen media.

The EFF’s basic online guide, basic online guide including legal liability issues, issues associated with bloggers as journalists, etc.

From the Citizen Media Law Project’s description of the guide: “The guide is intended for use by citizen media creators with or without formal legal training, as well as others with an interest in these issues, and addresses the legal issues that you may encounter as you gather information and publish your work online. The legal guide, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, covers the 15 most populous U.S. states and the District of Columbia and will focus on the wide range of legal issues online publishers are likely to face, including risks associated with publication, such as defamation and privacy torts; intellectual property; access to government information; newsgathering; and general legal issues involved in setting up a business.”

An online course for bloggers and media practitioners regarding what it terms the ten things one needs to know to stay out of court.

A Kevin Kelly post noting that when there are infinite copies of something, charging for one is almost impossible – so he presents eight ways of making something worth charging for.

Freeman Dyson, professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced study, in Princeton, on the need for young heretics in general, and then, specifically, Professor Dyson’s views on climate change science.

From D’Agostino’s abstract of this paper: “As a result of the March 4, 2004 Supreme Court of Canada decision in CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada for the first time in Canadian copyright history, the court determined that Canadian law must recognize a user right to carry on exceptions generally and fair dealing in particular. This paper compares the Canadian fair dealing legislation and jurisprudence to that of the UK and the US. It is observed that because of CCH, the Canadian common law fair dealing factors are more flexible than those entrenched in the US.”

The team blog for the Internet & Democracy Project, a research initiative at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

EFF’s Internet Law Treatise (currently in beta – read the disclaimer on the site) is a project to maintain a free, open licensed, collaborative treatise summarizing the law related to the Internet with the cooperation of a wide variety of attorneys, law students and others. “EFF is a donor-supported membership organization working to protect fundamental rights regardless of technology; to educate the press, policymakers, and the general public about civil liberties issues related to technology; and to act as a defender of those liberties. The views expressed in the Internet Law Treatise are not necessarily those of EFF.”

A reference resource: the copyright portion of the U.S. Codes as posted on the Cornell Law School website.

Some problems with identifying infringers by their IP addresses.

Professor Reynolds’ (“Instapundit”) 2006 paper attempting to account for the then paucity of libel litigation relating to blogs and exploring ways in which the law of libel may change in response to the different character of blogs, and new media in general

While the law changes regularly, and bloggers should check with an attorney when issues arise in any of these areas, this 2007 post by Aviva Directory covers some of the general areas of law and issues that bloggers should be aware of.