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12 U. S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know

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Some Legal Notes

Brand New SOB Franke James sent me an email yesterday. It held a link for Aviva Directory article on U. S. Blogger law. The article a resource for bloggers that I want to share with you.

Great Find: 12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know
Permalink: http://www.avivadirectory.com/blogger-law/
Target Audience: All bloggers
Content: This article was posted May 1, 2007 and received over 1500 Diggs. It outlines 12 U.S. laws that bloggers should know. Each law is defnined and described. Then appropriate defensive actions are outlined following that text. Here is a summary of the 12 laws.

    1. Bloggers must disclose when they are being paid to review a product.

    2. Courts have declared that some deep links to posts — rather than links to the changing front page of a blog — are in violation if anchor text and the text around the link misleads the reader into thinking the information is part of the original document.

    3. Inline linking, or hot linking, which pulls an image from another site to appear on a blog is considered risky. Using thumbnails created new for the purpose of using a fresh image on your blog is considered fair use.

    4. Any original work is under copyright protection the second it’s created. No form of record or registration is necessary.

    5. The Uniform Doman Name Dispute Resolution Policy has made domain name dispute handling more efficient. It also tends to favor trademark holders.

    6. It’s best to avoid revealing private information about readers, and to avoid collecting any data that you don’t absolutely need.

    7. As stated, “By including a terms of service which spells out that you will have a license in all content posted in the site and more specifically that you will not have a duty to modify or withdraw posts but you may do so if you choose, you can ensure that you have effective control over the user-driven content on your site even if you do not have actual ownership of the content.”

    8. The law is unclear on whether and how to handle comments on your blog that might be considered offensive, libelous, or otherwise in approrpriate.

    9. If a you run a business selling goods that sells in a state or local area, then you must collect sales tax from customers in that area.

    10. Forming an Limited Liability Company (LLC) rather than a corporations is the way to go for almost every blogger. An LLC carries all the same legal protections as a Corporation.

    11. Your newsletter could be illegal spam.

    12. Whether a blogger will be legally permitted to shield his source’s information confidential if subpoenaed isn’t clear yet.

Many links follow the discussion of the laws as references and further intormation. To read the entire article, click the title below.

Thanks, Franke, for passing this on.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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