Legal Guide

Back in January, we began rolling out the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Guide. So far, we've published major sections of the guide covering Forming a Business and Getting Online, Dealing with Online Legal Risks, Newsgathering and Privacy, and Access to Government Information. This week we are excited to announce that we've published the section on Intellectual Property, which explains various intellectual property concepts, including copyright, trademark, and trade secrets, and provides practical advice about how to use the intellectual property of others and protect your own work from exploitation.

To give you a feel for what the Intellectual Property section contains, we've pasted the Trademark overview below:   read more »

This is the eighth in a series of posts calling attention to topics we cover in the Citizen Media Legal Guide. In this post, we highlight the section on Access to Courts and Court Records, which provides an overview of federal and state laws that grant you the right to access federal and state court records and court proceedings. We also provide some practical tips for getting useful information out of your local courthouse.

If you’re hunting for information, consider a visit to the courthouse, where you can sift through resource-rich court records or attend (sometimes colorful) court proceedings.

Courts are centers for dispute resolution. They are public forums in which societal norms and values, as reflected in laws, are used to address and correct wrongs. While a number of laws govern the court system, none is so deeply-ingrained as the presumption that court proceedings should be open to the public.

If you are wondering how attending court proceedings or combing through court records might be valuable to you, here are several great reasons to consider acquiring -- and publishing -- information available from the courts:   read more »

Back in January, we began rolling out the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Guide. So far, we've published major sections of the guide covering Forming a Business and Getting Online, Dealing with Online Legal Risks, and Newsgathering and Privacy. This week we published the section on Access to Government Information, which highlights the extensive amount of information available through government sources and explains how both traditional and non-traditional journalists can use various public access laws to gather and make effective use of this information.

To whet your appetite, I've pasted the overview to this new section below:

Access to Government Information   read more »

This is the seventh in a series of posts calling attention to topics we cover in the Citizen Media Legal Guide. In this post, we highlight the section on Recording Phone Calls, Conversations, Meetings and Hearings, which discusses federal and state laws relating to the use of recording equipment in specific private and semi-public settings. We also provide some practical tips for using recording devices, which should help you steer clear of legal trouble.

Using a recording device, such as a microphone, video recorder, or camera, is often a helpful way to capture and preserve information about conversations, interviews, and phone calls in which you participate. It is also a good way to document what takes place in a court hearing or public meeting, whether for personal reference or later broadcast over the Internet.

Where you do your recording, and what you record, will largely dictate what legal limitations apply to your recording activities. It may also be the case (in fact, it is quite likely) that more than one set of laws or limitations might apply to your use of recording equipment. Before concluding that your activities are in the clear, you should read all of the sections listed below that might apply, as well as the section on Gathering Private Information elsewhere in this guide.   read more »

This is the sixth in a series of posts calling attention to some of the topics covered in the Citizen Media Legal Guide we began publishing in January. This past month, we rolled out the sections on Newsgathering and Privacy, which address the legal and practical issues you may encounter as you gather documents, take photographs or video, and collect other information.

In this post, we highlight the section on Protecting Sources and Source Material, which discusses the legal challenges in maintaining the confidentiality of sources and source material and outlines the federal and state laws that may protect you from forced disclosure of your newsgathering materials. We also provide several practical tips for protecting your sources and source material.

The ability to protect your sources and newsgathering materials is often critical to your being able to gather information and inform the public. In the course of assembling information for an article, post, podcast, or other work, you may obtain information that, for a number of reasons, you do not wish to make available to the public.

Ironically, confidentiality may be an essential part of bringing information to the public's attention because as a publisher, you may only be able to gather the information if you promise not to reveal the information's source. For example, reporting that involves the criticism of government and exposure of government and corporate wrongdoing often depends on the use of confidential sources.
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This is the fifth in a series of posts calling attention to some of the topics covered in the Citizen Media Legal Guide we began publishing in January. This past month we rolled out the sections on Newsgathering and Privacy, which address the legal and practical issues you may encounter as you gather documents, take photographs or video, and collect other information.

In this post, we highlight the section on Gathering Private Information, which outlines various privacy laws that may limit your ability to gather private information or otherwise intrude into another person's private space.

Gathering Private Information

If you physically enter a private area, photograph or take video of people engaged in private activities in places where they reasonably expect to be private, or in some other other way intrude into a person's privacy (by, for example, opening the person's mail), you could be liable for a violation of what is called "intrusion upon seclusion." If you collect certain personal data, this can also intrude into a person's private affairs. In the newsgathering context, the actual collection of the data could be seen as intrusion if the method you use meets the four general elements for an intrusion claim.   read more »

Back in January, we announced the launch of the first two major sections of the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Guide covering Forming a Business and Getting Online and Dealing with Online Legal Risks. This past month we began rolling out the section on Newsgathering and Privacy, which addresses the legal and practical issues you may encounter as you gather documents, take photographs or video, and collect other information. Here is a quick rundown of the sections we've just published:   read more »

This is the fourth in a series of posts calling attention to some of the topics covered in the Citizen Media Legal Guide we published in January. As we roll out new sections of the guide each month, we will highlight some of the more important topics in blog posts.

In the first three posts we discussed choosing a business form for your online activities, the issues associated with selecting a platform for online speech, and deciding whether and how to be anonymous when publishing online. In this post we highlight the importance of insurance and help you evaluate whether your existing coverage is sufficient.

Even frivolous lawsuits dismissed at a relatively early stage of the litigation can be expensive to defend, and the cost skyrockets the longer the litigation continues, particularly if judgment is rendered against you. While most lawsuits never get to trial, if you lack the money to carry out a vigorous defense, the only option available to you may be to settle (perhaps even to take down the allegedly offending content or even your entire site) regardless of the merits of your defense.   read more »

This is the third in a series of posts calling attention to some of the topics covered in the Citizen Media Legal Guide we published in January. As we roll out new sections of the guide each month, we will highlight some of the more important topics in blog posts.

In the first two posts we discussed choosing a business form for your online activities and the issues associated with selecting a platform for online speech. In this post we discuss the legal and practical issues you should consider if you wish to engage in anonymous speech online.

Putting aside the possible legal challenges to anonymity for the time being, there are some practical considerations that you should think about before deciding to carry out your online publishing activities anonymously or pseudonymously.   read more »

This is the second in a series of posts calling attention to some of the topics covered in the recently launched Citizen Media Law Project Legal Guide. The first topic we took up was choosing a business form for your online publishing activities. In this post we discuss the various issues, both legal and practical, that arise when you select a platform for your online speech.

So you've decided that you want to publish online. There is a wide range of platforms you can use to get your words, video, and other content out to the world.

Of course, the easiest way for you to get online is to simply go to a website that allows user comments or forum posts and add your two cents to the mix. If you want a more permanent home -- and one you can control to some degree yourself -- you will want to consider whether to join a service such as Blogger, TypePad, Livejournal, or even MySpace (yes, we know it's a social networking site), that will host and manage your content for you or whether you want to create your own, independent website. Each option has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are some of the things you might want to think about in deciding which platform -- or platforms -- you will use:   read more »