Editor’s Note: Yesterday, we learned about the most common legal issues you can encounter when running a blog. As part of their trade, many freelancers maintain their own industry blog or contribute to other publications. Read 8 Legal Issues for Bloggers: Part 1 for a discussion on basic blogging concerns. For part two, James Adams returns today to discuss issues specific to student bloggers, adult material, and other concerns. Take it away, James! Continue Reading

Editor’s Note: In addition to their client work, many freelancers keep a blog related to their work, industry, and passion. In a two part series, James Adams helps us explore the legal pitfalls and concerns of publishing a blog. Today we’ll focus on common issues such as defamation and privacy. Watch tomorrow when we go into specific issues and details in Part 2!

Blogging, like traditional forms of journalism, is a legal minefield. If anything, however, it’s even more confusing for bloggers than for journalists, as laws have not yet been adapted to fit with this thoroughly modern method of public interaction. While journalists might have the relevant experience, training and resources to be able to deal with legal problems, chances are, most bloggers won’t. Large companies often take advantage of this fact, bullying bloggers into submission.

If you want to cover your back and stick up for yourself, if and when legal proceedings come your way, you need to do a bit of background reading. The article below acts as an introduction to the kinds of issues you might encounter as a blogger, but you should seek out more comprehensive information and legal advice if necessary. You have the right to free speech, the right to blog anonymously, the right to make fair use of intellectual property and much more. Read on to find out how to safely exercise these rights. Continue Reading

The web has made it easy for copyright infringers: it’s the work of just a few minutes to copy an image, an article or even an entire website design. That leads big companies to establish big legal departments devoted to chasing down copyright infringement. As a freelancer, however, your legal department may amount to an hour or so that you can devote to such problems each week — bringing in a lawyer is rarely worth the cost.

You don’t have to let someone get away with stealing your work, though. There are steps you can take that will help resolve such problems. Continue Reading

Everyone hates it when their work gets blatantly ripped off. Although it’s one thing to look to others for inspiration, it’s a completely different story when ideas get stolen lock, stock and barrel.

So what recourse are you left with when you find your intellectual property stolen? Your first reaction may drift towards baseball bat justice. But while baseball bats can be enjoyable, it rarely fixes the problem. Better yet, you can use a service like Myows to deal with cases of infringement.
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Since the advent of the Internet as a wide-open information conduit there has been a lot of worry amongst legislators, media corporations, and others with a stake in preventing content piracy to create a law that would add teeth to copyright for electronic communications. The long discussions, lobbying, and heated arguments between interested parties were loud and public. The end result was the passing of a complex law called The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.

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Copyright is as old as printing and as new as today. As freelancers, whether writing, designing for print or the Internet, broadcasting, filming, or creating music, you should be aware of your rights of ownership of your work as well as when you actually can’t retain full ownership — the down side of selling your work for a living.

Note: You cannot copyright an idea or name, only an actual creation; and the item does not have to be published to hold a copyright. The minute you create it and even if you don’t mark it with a copyright symbol, it still is fully owned by you.

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