I’ve offered to speak at BarCamp Dublin. I’ve even got so far as a proposed title. It’s the one I’ve used as the title to this post. “Law of Blogs; Blogs of Law”. But I’ve not really got any further. So, if you have an inspiration or suggestions, I’d be grateful to have them.
Yes, yes; I do know that the suggested title is self-referentially post-modern. I just liked it. But I’ll change it if you come up with a better one.
Update (14 Feb 2007): Thanks to those who have made comments (below), or sent emails off-blog. I think that bloggers face many potential legal problems, from the obvious defamation and copyright issues to perhaps-not-so-obvious privacy and data protection matters. But there will be lots of other legal questions which other, more experienced, bloggers have already encountered that have not come my way yet. And I’d like more about those. Bernard’s query below – whether it will be “Tort 101: Law of tort for blogging?” – may not be too wide of the mark. I suspect that my ‘talk’ will be more in the nature of a freewheeling discussion arising organically from the concerns of bloggers present than a pre-structured presentation dreamed up by me in the quiet moments in my office (in part becuase there are none!); but I’d nevertheless like some steer as to what those concerns might be. Hence the call for suggestions.
Update (22 Feb 2007): The slides are now available here.
Hi Eoin,
I guess it depeneds on how someone reads the title.
Will it be a Tort 101: Law of tort for blogging?
I might have plenty of ideas if so ;) Either way, looking forward to it.
bernard
Antoin (offblog) directs me to a nice decision for bloggers (or a good day for users) in the Supreme Court of California. It’s called Barrett v Rosenthal 40 Cal.4th 33, 146 P.3d 510, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 (Cal. Sup. Ct., Nov. 20, 2006) (see findlaw (free sub req’d) for the full text (pdf) of decision, EFF for resources, and wikipedia for discussion). It turns on the terms of section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act 1996 (47 USC § 230(c); Cornell LII | Findlaw), which has no direct Irish equivalent. But it makes for interesting reading, and its theoretical and structural arguments could be tried in other common law jurisdictions, such as Ireland, though likely to less dramatic effect than in Barrett v Rosenthal.
Great subject! Why don’t you check out http://contentlabel.org where I’m kicking off a new code of conduct for blogs. You might want to participate.
This description of a similar talk from a Canadian blogging conference which I run might help spark some ideas:
http://2007.northernvoice.ca/session/legal-rights-and-liabilities-for-bloggers
i.I suspect that my ‘talk’ will be more in the nature of a freewheeling discussion arising organically from the concerns of bloggers present than a pre-structured presentation dreamed up by me in the quiet moments in my office (in part because there are none!);
That’s what I’m interested in! But actually I want to develop my own skills and get over my scare factor in what I blog about in case I get sued – which looms large frequently – so if there was a 5/10 point plan that would guide me as I blog or something? I realise this is very specific but I figure I’ll get something out of whatever you present as I’m interested in how to defend new social media from the mainstream media’s allegations of stuff not being legal etc.
Further to Anoin’s reference above, now comes the Roomates.com case discussed on PanGloss