A couple of weeks ago I attended an Own-IT event all about the legal side to blogging. I was introduced to the event by Improbulus and a huge thanks there as it turned out to be a very educational evening.
It started with a presentation from Dan at MindCandy and then moved on to a chap called Robert Lands from legal firm Finers Stephens Innocent LLP . (Incidentally Robert, the invitation to speak at the London Bloggers Meetup still stands. If you’re interested do please let me know when you’re available).
I found Robert’s presentation very engaging and his relaxed style made it easy listening. No disrespect to the legal profession, but they are not known for their humour..
So what are the top 10 tips I took away from Robert’s presentation**
2. Yes you can get fired if you blog about your job, employer or other employees, even if you change the names involved. If it’s possible for readers to interpret what you’ve written as being about your employer, you’ve had it.. and there are plenty of examples of this.
3. As a blogger you are seen by the law as a professional journalist and publisher. Therefore anything you write about a person or company in a defamatory way leaves you open to being sued for libel (this is more relevant in the UK than the US as apparently we have tighter controls on freedom of speech).
4. If your server is in India how can I be sued by someone in the US? Well it seems you can, the law of the land where your media is consumed is most important. So in the understanding that nobody knows the laws of every land, you might want to add a ‘terms of use’ page to your site stating something like ‘if you read this blog you agree to be bound by the laws of (your home country)…..’ or words to that effect. Contact your local legal beagle for advice on this, or if you’re in the UK contact Finers Stephens Innocent LLP.http://www.fsilaw.com/.
5. If someone takes a disliking to the content on your blog / web 2.0 site, probably the first you will know about it is when you get a letter asking you to take down the content. It might help to have a page on your site with “Notice and Take Down Policies” i.e. telling people how you will deal with any complaint.
6. With copyright, you can get done for linking to a site that infringes someone else’s copyright. Incredible if you ask me, but I don’t set the rules. So be careful what content and blogs you link to as they may be putting you at risk. It’s called ‘making available’.
7. Don’t ever blog about the intellectual property you are generating at work e.g. technology you are developing for your employer, or content you are writing. This will land you in hot water as they will own all this content and you giving it away is not a good thing. Equally, make sure your own employees know your policy here.
8. If you are publishing content written by others, either who you have paid or not, make it clear who owns the content. Get it down on paper with each writer to avoid any problems later on with intellectual property rights.
9. If you write about a company don’t be tempted to include a copy of their logo in your post (I’ve done this a lot). If the company doesn’t like your content you could be done for things like Dilution of the brand, or incorrect usage of a Trade Mark.
10. remember, you are seen by the law as a professional journalist, so you should be prepared to be treated as one. Get some legal advice or do some research so you understand your legal position, before it’s too late.
So there you go. If you haven’t realised why I started on point 2, it’s because point 1. is below. Hope all that was helpful.
** disclaimer. These comments do not constitute legal advice and you should consult a qualified legal practitioner before using any of this advice (point number 1. do not offer advice you are not qualified to give..)
Comments (46)
Washington DC Attorney -
December 17, 2008 at 5:29 pm
A must read for any serious blogger. Copyright infringement is a serious crime – be careful.
Toronto personal injury -
January 6, 2009 at 7:16 am
ill disclaim point no 1 at the end.
Jason -
January 20, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Wow…thats actually pretty scary. It is amazing how easily you can be sued these days. I am always careful not to attack people in my posts, it can come back to haunt you.
Kirsten Mason -
February 17, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Most of the points are just common sense. Give credit where it is due. #6 was very surprising to me. Great information for a new blogger like myself.
workers compensation audit -
February 18, 2009 at 3:07 am
So now we’ve created another niche for lawsuits. If the big boys don’t like us they can just shut us down with some legal action. Ridiculous.
Wireless Network Setup Guy -
March 8, 2009 at 9:54 pm
These are very useful points for those who write their own blogs and are not familiar with all the intellectual property laws. I personally didn’t know about possibility of getting sued and company images on the web pages before today.
Rohit -
April 15, 2009 at 11:55 am
HI,
I want to say people share their view by blogging as they do not have time to arrange a meeting and share about that. And blogging is also time effective. U can easily write something with in 1 hour… and if u will ask about copying the content..I’ll say if others are getting benefited from that then why to worry. Bloggers main motive is to to get name,fame and people should appreciate the work. If some one is copying ur writing and saying that he had referred from ur site then it is good for u as well for him also. If u say Logo copying then I’ll say company is getting benefited from this…
here u see there is place to comment why?? to share our view…then why a blogger or commenter should be sued.
Gareth -
June 5, 2009 at 8:32 am
You don’t seem to understand. You can credit the author as much as you like, but if you don’t have permission it is still wrong. Why should someone who has done no work get rewards from high Google rankings and visitors, and consequently affiliate/adsense revenue from what is effectively stolen material? It shouldn’t be good for him, because if its good for him as well as you, it would be better for you if it wasn’t good for him.
Zen Quotes -
June 27, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I am new to blogging and this stuff sounds scary, its great though i came accross this post, because its very important information.
Thanks
Cathy @ 3 at 1 Copying -
July 29, 2009 at 5:30 am
Well I have certainly learn’t something here, I had no idea that one can get sued for being a blogger even if you are in a different country, I did know that one can get fired if you complain about your boss and work via a blog or even on Face Book, this happened somewhere in England where a woman was off sick and she when on face book and co workers saw her status and her bad mouthing the company she was then fired.
john -
August 12, 2009 at 4:06 am
Anyone can easily stolen online information but you have given away good legal info.
Scary Videos -
August 17, 2009 at 2:18 am
If they ever start enforcing the laws in connection with #6, there will be a tidal wave of lawsuits…please…in the states linking to websites that abuse copyright is common place. Just take YouTube for example. Youtube would have a serious problem on their hands. I guess Google’s war chest of cash is enough to intimidate even the US Justice Department…
Free Acne Information -
August 31, 2009 at 6:27 am
There’s always been a gray cloud looming over my head in respect to legalities. What I do know is that online crimes have largely gone unpunished, primarily domain theft. I think we finally had our first arrest for domain theft a few weeks ago actually.
Tyrel Hough -
September 22, 2009 at 5:48 am
Pretty crazy that there is a whole new set of rules now that social media and blogging is now main stream. Came pretty quick but it’s amazing how it all has caught on!
Canada Pardons -
January 7, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Yes i would agree that #2 & #7 should be common sense.
But many of these offenders probably thought that “oh, no one reads my blog anyway, so I’m OK”
Contact Form -
August 23, 2010 at 7:47 pm
I am just making a blog related to this. If you agree, I would like to use some of your content. And with full refernce of course. Thanks in advance.
- Andre
Julius Veres -
August 24, 2010 at 8:10 am
Superb. It’s the same here in Washington. Can be extremely amusing, but that’s how it is in this day and age.
mikeh -
December 22, 2012 at 2:07 pm
I like #8. I see this happening all of the time. Good job writing his article!!!
simply.food -
January 17, 2013 at 12:10 pm
This is indeed A VERY informative post and I will DEFINITELY take advise about some of the points you have raised. Thanks for the meetup yesterday, it was my first but will surely attend others.
sharron scriven -
January 19, 2013 at 12:59 pm
Really that is very good topic for blogging. Thanks.
Guillermo -
February 9, 2013 at 8:24 pm
This is a brilliant article.
I do know a guy at my company that was indeed sacked and sued for posting pictures of the company’s facilities and blogging about parts of his job he shouldn’t be blogging about…
It’s just common sense…