Law X.0

The World's 50 Most Powerful Blogs

According to The Guardian. [JH]

New Edition of Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents Now Available

Reporters Without Borders has published a new edition of its Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents (pdf). It offers practical advice and techniques on how to start up a blog, how to blog for anonymously and how to circumvent censorship.

Here's the Table of Contents

1. BLOGGERS, A NEW SOURCE OF NEWS by Clothilde Le Coz
2. WHAT’S A BLOG ? by LeMondedublog.com
3. THE LANGUAGE OF BLOGGING by LeMondedublog.com
4. CHOOSING THE BEST TOOL by Cyril Fiévet, Marc-Olivier Peyer and LeMondedublog.com
5. HOW TO SET UP AND RUN A BLOG by The Wordpress System
6. WHAT ETHICS SHOULD BLOGUEURS HAVE? by Dan Gillmor
7. GETTING YOUR BLOG PICKED UP BY SEARCH-ENGINES by Olivier Andrieu
8. WHAT REALLY MAKES A BLOG SHINE? by Mark Glaser
9. PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
   • SWITZERLAND by Picidae
   • EGYPT: “When the line between journalist and activist disappears” by Wael Abbas
   • THAILAND : “The Web was not designed for bloggers” by Jotman
10. HOW TO BLOG ANONYMOUSLY WITH WORDPRESS AND TOR by Ethan Zuckerman
11. TECHNICAL WAYS TO GET ROUND CENSORSHIP by Nart Villeneuve
12. ENSURING YOUR E-MAIL IS TRULY PRIVATE by Ludovic Pierrat
13. THE 2008 GOLDEN SCISSORS OF CYBER-CENSORSHIP by Clothilde Le Coz

[JH]

Comparing Six Ways to Identify Top Blogs in Any Niche

Interesting article from ReadWriteWeb:

"In the early days of blogging you could go to the Technorati Blog Index, enter some identifying terms for a particular niche topic and discover what the top blogs were in the field.

Identifying top niche blogs is invaluable knowledge for anyone wanting to enter, study or market to people in a particular field. It's one of the fastest and most effective ways to learn the lay of the land and get involved in the community of successful artists, real estate agents or 4-H club leaders using social media. I've been seeing a lot of demand for this information lately so I thought I'd write up some quick pros and cons of the options I'm familiar with. Perhaps you'll add some of your own favorite methods in comments."

[RJ]

Boxer on Blogs

Sarah Boxer, formerly a critic and reporter at The New York Times and author of Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web, an anthology to be published this month, has published a jolly good little article in The New York Review of Books (February 14, 2008) aptly titled Blogs. Actually, it's more jolly than good, hardly up to the standards of the Review's typical think pieces but then it isn't intended to be a one.

Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web
by Sarah Boxer

List Price: $14.95
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Vintage (February 12, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0307278069
ISBN-13: 978-0307278067

[JH]

ABA Journal Blawg 100, Voting Ends Jan. 2

Just a reminder. As you probably know by now, the editors of the ABA Journal have chosen the "100 best web sites by lawyers, for lawyers." Voting ends January 2, 2008.

You can vote for your favorite blog in each of the following categories here.

• Generally Speaking
• All Business
• Politics for Sport
• Ivory Tower
• Black Letter Law
• Lawyer's Toolkit
• Your So-Called Life
• Crime Time
• JDs in Training
• Lawyers Behaving Badly
• Gossip
• Benched

Congratulations to our Law Professor Blogs Network [Network's RSS feed page] editors:

• Legal Profession Blog, by Alan Childress (Tulane), Michael Frisch (Georgetown), and Jeffrey Lipshaw (Suffolk), in the Lawyers Behaving Badly Category;
• Brian Leiter's Law School Reports, by Brian Leiter (Texas), in the Ivory Tower Category;
• Sentencing Law & Policy, by Doug Berman (Ohio State), in the Crime Time Category; and
• Media Law Prof Blog editor Christine Corcos (LSU) for her Law and Magic blog in the Gossip category.

[JH]

Blogs in Plain English

The great folks at Common Craft Paperworks produced this three minute video for people who wonder why blogs are such a big deal. [JH]

Be More Than a Blip in the Blogosphere

Interesting article from the Washington Post:

For a rookie blogger, there's nothing more disheartening than seeing "0 COMMENTS" at the end of a six-day-old post. Or checking your traffic stats on SiteMeter and finding you've gotten only three page views that day: two from your mother and one from someone who was looking for nude photos of Jennifer Lopez and Googled his way to your post about knitting booties for your infant niece.

"No one cares about your blog." It's a mantra that's been around almost as long as the blogosphere. But it doesn't have to be true. Washington has a thriving, tightly knit blogging community (as evidenced by the 1,000-plus blogs that zip through the feed on the site DC Blogs), so the chance is good that at least some people will care. There are several things you have to do to help make this a reality. Below are 10 tips from local bloggers who started small and steadily found an audience:

1. TELL STORIES RATHER THAN STICKING SOLELY TO LINKS OR PHOTOS.
2. CREATE A VOICE FOR YOURSELF.
3. MAKE EVERYTHING EASY TO READ AND ACCESS.
4. SIFT THROUGH BLOGROLLS AND CREATE YOUR OWN.
5. WIDGET YOUR PAGE.
6. COMMENT EARLY AND OFTEN.
7. PRAY FOR A LINK FROM THE BIG BOYS.
8. NOMINATE YOURSELF FOR AWARDS.
9. POST WITH VERVE AND CONSISTENCY
10. JOIN THE CROWD.

[RJ]

2007 Worldwide Press Freedom Index: Repression Shifting from Journalists to Bloggers

Reporters Without Borders' 2007 Worldwide Press Freedom Index (pdf) which indicates that government repression in some countries has shifted from journalists to bloggers, with the vitality of the Internet triggering a more focused crackdown as blogs increasingly take the place of mainstream news media. According to the report, countries such as Egypt and Jordan, that were not sentencing journalists to prison terms anymore, have been doing exactly that recently to bloggers. [JH]

Vote for 2007 Weblog Awards

Voting for The 2007 Weblog Awards is underway. There are 49 categories includeing one for Best Law Blog. You can vote once a day in each category. Polls close close Thursday November 8, 2007 at 10:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which is 5:00 p.m. (EST) and 2:00 p.m. (PST).

Finalist in the Best Law Blog category are:

Above the Law
How Appealing
Volokh Conspiracy
Sui Generis
Balkinization
Simple Justice
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
SCOTUS Blog
Likelihood Of Confusion
Ms JD Changing the Face of the Legal Profession

[JH]

PC Mag's 100 Favorite Blogs

PCMag.com's Blog Editor Brian Heater has compilied a list of blog content destinations. Check out the list. [JH]

Blogging Best Practices

The New York Times offers 10 things to consider before launching your blog:

1. Determine what you have to offer.
2. Decide if your blog will be a marketing tool.
3. Define your editorial vision.
4. Consider the content.
5. Share your thought leadership.
6. Be a credible source.
7. Decide who will be the writer.
8. Choose your partnerships wisely.
9. Learn how to engage your readers.
10. Know what matters to your readers.

[RJ]

Blogging, Scholarship and the Bench and Bar at Santa Clara

On September 11th, the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and the National Law Journal presented a panel discussion on "Blogging, Scholarship, and the Bench and Bar" at Santa Clara University School of Law. The panelists included Eric Goldman, Santa Clara law prof and blogger at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog, who blogged the notes he prepared for the event on Goldman's Observations and Illinois law prof and Legal Theory blogger Larry Solum who posted a brief recap of the event. Goldman's notes are particularly interesting. His reflections focus on the following questions:

• "How much time should a professor spend on blogging? When is it too much?"
• "How can someone tell the difference between a good blog and a bad blog? How can the reader know if what's on a blog is accurate and truthful?"
• "What suggestions do you have regarding the format of law review articles that are drawn from your blogging experience?"
• "Law school gossip -- who has an offer from what law school, for example -- travels quickly on blogs. Has this been a positive or negative development on balance?"

Hat tip to Adjunct Law Prof Blog. [JH]

Reader, Not Editor-centric, Ethical Standards

John Dvorak, PC Magazine's man with a million opinions, writes about how mainstream ethical journalism is crumbling under the massive weight of a reporting blogosphere.

The holier-than-thou old media thinking will fall by the wayside. In new media publications, ethics are demanded by the readers, not the editors. With open forums, comment threads, and other mechanisms, the modern structure is policed by the public. Old media cannot grasp this concept.

I mention this ethics issue only because new media in general is unethical—if we are to judge it by old standards.

Emphasis added.

Read more about this in Dvorak's The Road from Media Ethics to Information Anarchy. [JH]

BlawgWorld 2007 with TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide

The TechnoLawyer Blog is making available for a free download a PDF file of a free e-book. The book is entitled BlawgWorld 2007 with TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide. From the announcement:

BlawgWorld 2007 with TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide is a free eBook. Actually, it's two eBooks in one PDF file.

BlawgWorld 2007 is the best way to explore and discover legal blogs (blawgs). It features 77 remarkable essays from 77 of the most influential blawgs. Each blogger handpicked their best essay of the year for inclusion in the eBook.

The 2007 TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide is a revolutionary new way to find Solutions to Problems your law firm is experiencing. Specifically, it contains 185 Problems and corresponding Solutions.

Each Problem is written in the form of a question from the point of view of a law firm and organized by topic. Topics include case management, depositions, discovery, document management, legal research, time-billing, and many more — 58 topics in all.

What the heck, it is free. [JH]

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) to Blog Community: Help write legislation on net neutrality

PC World is reporting that Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) has invited OpenLeft.com to collaborate on new broadband legislation. OpenLeft.com, a blog focused on liberal issues, has been hosting a wide-ranging discussion on broadband policy. Senator Dick Durbin, assistant majority leader in the Senate, has joined the discussion, saying he'll use the ideas from OpenLeft to craft broadband legislation. Check out and join in the discussion at OpenLeft. [JH]

Clinton Draws Boos From Bloggers at Annual Kos Convention

CNN has the story. [JH]

The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0

From the report:

In this research report, [Southeastern Louisiana University David C. Wyld] examines the phenomenon of blogging in the context of the larger revolutionary forces at play in the development—or redevelopment—of a second-generation Internet. In the first part of the report, the state of blogging across the American public sector is examined, seeing how pioneering leaders (let’s call them “blogoneers”) in the public sector are making use of this new technology to foster improved communications both with their constituencies and within their organizations. Blogging is fast becoming a new tool for promoting online and offline engagement. The author provides a comprehensive assessment to date of the blogging activities found across all levels of government.

Time for blogosphere to get real about church and state

Interesting article from CNET News:

"Charles Cooper says the fuzzy acceptance of "conversational marketing" is leading to confusion among blog readers. Isn't it time to set down clear rules of the road?" 

For counterpoint see:  Does Relevant Advertising Mean Selling Out?, ChasNote

[RJ]

From There, To Here, To Where?

The evolution of the blawgosphere by Bill Gratsch.  Check it out!  [RJ]

Video: RSS in Plain English

I'm surprised by the number of law bloggers who do not use or do not understand RSS feeds. Commoncraft has produced this great little video. As the Company states, "there are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don't. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don't know where to start." [JH]

Click To Play

A Q & A With Scott Gant, Author of We're All Journalists Now

On May 15, I posted a book announcement about Scott Gant's We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age. The work was released to the public for sale today. Here's the text of an Q & A with Gant about his very interesting book.

Q. When did you first become interested in the shifting definition of a journalist, and what made you decide to write a book?

A. For several years I’ve been fascinated by questions about whether journalists are entitled to privileges not extended to ordinary citizens, and what distinguishes “journalists” from other people who make information and ideas available to the public. I found my interest in those questions intensifying in early 2005, when a number of news stories propelled them into the headlines. One of those stories disclosed that the Department of Education had paid Armstrong Williams, a prominent African-American commentator, $240,000 to promote the federal government’s No Child Left Behind program on his nationally syndicated television show (a fact he did not disclose to his listeners). Another revealed that for two years the White House had been issuing a press pass to Jeff Gannon of Talon News, a now-defunct Web site affiliated with GOPUSA (an organization whose mission “is to spread the conservative message throughout America”), during which Gannon asked the President and White House press secretary questions that many described as “softballs” designed to demonstrate support for the administration and its policies. After it was revealed that Gannon had used a pseudonym to obtain his press pass, and lacked any significant journalism experience, a furor over his two-year admittance to the White House press corps ensued, with many claiming that Gannon did not belong alongside “legitimate” journalists in the press room.

As these incidents were making headlines, a much more significant story was taking shape. By the middle of 2005, it became unmistakably clear that the Web was facilitating the emergence of large numbers of nonprofessionals and nontraditional journalists (including many bloggers) as a force in defining and distributing news. I recognized that the lines distinguishing professional journalists from other people who disseminate information, ideas, and opinions to a wide audience had been blurred, perhaps beyond recognition. Aspects of the issue had legal dimensions that were receiving little attention. I also soon realized that I was forming strong views about these issues—for instance, that journalism should be viewed as an activity, not a job title, and that “freedom of the press” is a right that belongs to all of us, not just those working for traditional news organizations. I began taking notes and collecting material, planning to write an article for a legal journal examining these issues. It then occurred to me that this discussion would interest a broader audience. So, I approached a friend who had recently formed his own literary agency, and asked if he thought my idea might make an interesting book. The rest, as they say, is history.

Q. How did you go about gathering your research for this book?

A. We’re All Journalists Now addresses historical, economic, cultural, and legal issues, among others, and therefore required research on a wide variety of topics. That work was done before and during the writing process, over a period of about 18 months, and involved reading books, articles, legal material, studies, polls, traditional news publications, as well as blogs and other forms of citizen journalism. I also conducted a number of interviews – getting to play the role of journalist myself.

Q. What is your suggestion for ways that current laws should be changed to encompass non-traditional journalists?

A. Most of the rules, policies, and practices under which journalists enjoy privileges not available to others operate either without any definition of journalism, or with a narrow perspective that turns in part on whether a person is affiliated with a traditional news organization or makes a living practicing journalism. The fundamental change needed is a move to a broader conception of journalism, viewing it as an endeavor which can be undertaken by any of us, even if we’re not working for a traditional news organization, and even if we are not engaged in the activity for financial gain.

Q. With your background in constitutional law, do you think it necessary and/or likely that the First Amendment will be revised anytime soon?

A. I do not expect the First Amendment to be formally amended anytime soon. But, like other parts of the Constitution, the First Amendment is subject to ongoing interpretation and reinterpretation. The Supreme Court’s current interpretation of the First Amendment effectively reads it as if the Press Clause (the words “or of the Press”) was not there, having expansively interpreted the Amendment’s Speech Clause without deciding whether there are any circumstances under which “the Press” have rights or privileges under the Constitution not available to others. If Congress does not enact a federal shield law with an inclusive definition of journalism, I anticipate that sometime in the relatively near future (in the context of Supreme Court jurisprudence that means roughly the next decade), the Supreme Court will have to consider whether the First Amendment confers any special rights on the press, and who qualifies for those rights. If an expansive federal shield statute is enacted, the Court may manage to stay clear of the issue for a while longer. If and when the Court takes up questions about the Press Clause and the nature of press freedom, it ought to reject the view that people are entitled to special rights and privileges based on their affiliation with a particular kind of business or organization rather than on their activities.

Q. If citizen journalists and bloggers were granted the same rights and protections as members of the mainstream media, what sort of problems might arise? Where do you think the line should be drawn between professional journalists and non-traditional journalists, and does there even need to be a line?

A. These are important questions, and I spend a significant part of the book’s final chapter trying to answer them and related concerns about adopting a more inclusive conception of journalism. The short answer is that I do not anticipate there will be as many complications as some people appear to imagine. For instance, I doubt many people not actually engaged in the dissemination of information and ideas to the public will claim that they are doing so in order to avail themselves of privileges extended to journalists. In addition, allocating press preferences based on a functional view of journalism – as opposed to doing so on the basis of affiliation with an established news organization or income tests – does not mean we would be without criteria to evaluate (and limit) claims of entitlement to rights and privileges designed for journalists. It would be defensible, in my view, to limit privileges to those who add some original analysis or content to what they disseminate to the public, which would exclude those who merely aggregate content created entirely by others. In the rare situations where there are physical constraints on the number of people who can receive a preference – such as limited seating in a courtroom – the government can use a number of neutral criteria to decide which journalists will receive it, such as a lottery system or first-come, first-served rule. But we also must not lose sight of the fact that the allocation of press preferences implicates important principles and constitutional rights. Even if the administration of privileges were made more complicated by adopting a broader conception of journalism, we should favor over-extension of preferences to denying press privileges to people actually engaged in the practice of journalism.

Q. How can we reconcile the disparity of accountability between members of the mainstream media and bloggers/non-traditional journalists? If an irresponsible blogger posts something false but is still considered a journalist, should he/she be protected under the First Amendment?

A. I am not sure there is a fundamental difference in accountability. Like traditional journalists and media organizations, individual non-traditional journalists will ultimately rise or fall based on the reputations they acquire and their ability to foster the trust of the consumers of their products. And like traditional journalists and media organizations, citizen journalists and bloggers are subject to liability for defamation and on other bases for things they write.

Q. If you were in charge of drafting the new definition of a “journalist” for the 2008 version of the New Oxford American Dictionary, what would you write?

A. Part of what I try to explain in the book is that legal definitions are sometimes different from – and in some respects more important than – classifications used in other contexts. For instance, if an imaginary private organization called the Society of Real Journalists wants to limit its membership to people who meet certain standards for quality, or otherwise, they are free to do so. Similarly, a person who has spent decades working for a major newspaper or television news outfit may resist the idea of calling an individual with a blog a “journalist” – and, again, they are entitled to their view, based on their personal notion of what constitutes journalism. But there are many circumstances in which the government bestows on those deemed “journalists” privileges unavailable to others. And in those situations, I believe journalism must be construed broadly. Recently proposed legislation in Congress for a federal shield law defines journalism as “the gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.” This strikes me as a reasonably good approach.

Q. How do you think members of the mainstream media and traditional journalists will react to your book? What about bloggers and citizen journalists? Major news organizations?

A. I hope everyone interested in journalism and its vital role in our society will find the book interesting and its subject important. I nevertheless expect there will be resistance to some of my arguments. The view, held by some, that the only legitimate journalism is carried out by those working for established news organizations will not be readily abandoned. But most “mainstream” or traditional journalists also recognize the danger of having the government decide who is a journalist, or allocate preferences based on its judgment about what journalism is worthwhile, and many of my arguments are animated by that same concern.

Rationalizing Internet Safe Harbors

Stanford Law Prof Mark Lemley has deposited Rationalizing Internet Safe Harbors in SSRN. Here's the abstract:

Internet intermediaries - service providers, Web hosting companies, Internet backbone providers, online marketplaces, and search engines - process hundreds of millions of data transfers every day, and host or link to literally tens of billions of items of third party content.

Some of this content is illegal. In the last 12 years, both Congress and the courts have concluded that Internet intermediaries should not be liable for a wide range of content posted or sent through their systems by another. The reasoning behind these immunities is impeccable: if Internet intermediaries were liable every time someone posted problematic content on the Internet, the resulting threat of liability and effort at rights clearance would debilitate the Internet.

While the logic of some sort of safe harbor for Internet intermediaries is clear, the actual content of those safe harbors is not. Rather, the safe harbors actually in place are a confusing and illogical patchwork. For some claims, the safe harbors are absolute. For others, they preclude damages liability but not injunctive relief. For still others they are dependent on the implementation of a “notice and takedown” system. And for at least a few types of claims, there is no safe harbor at all. This patchwork makes no sense. In this article, I suggest that it be replaced with a uniform safe harbor rule. A single, rationally designed safe harbor based on the trademark model would not only permit plaintiffs the relief they need while protecting Internet intermediaries from unreasonable liability, but would also serve as a much needed model for the rest of the world, which has yet to understand the importance of intermediaries to a vibrant Internet.

A Case Study in Bloggership

Wisconsin law prof D. Gordon Smith's A Case Study in Bloggership is about to be published in the Washington University Law Review. 

Abstract: This brief essay, prepared for a symposium on Bloggership: How Blogs Are Transforming Legal Scholarship, held at Harvard Law School on April 27-28, 2006, uses blogging about The Walt Disney Company Derivative Litigation at the Conglomerate blog to illustrate the potential of blogging as a scholarly medium. Blogging encourages individual research and reflection, and its public nature provides an opportunity for scholarly activity that is similar in many ways to presenting at an academic conference or publishing an editorial article. Bloggership is a useful neologism that distinguishes this sort of scholarship from traditional, long-form scholarship and it distinguishes blogging that has scholarly aspirations from other forms of blogging. If scholarship is about making a contribution to knowledge, and the receptacle for that contribution is a scholarly community, then blogs seem well positioned to serve as delivery mechanisms.

Here's the SSRN version (revised March 27, 2007). [JH]

Metacrap: An Interview with Cory Doctorow

This is the first of a series of David Weinberger interviews cosponsored by Wired News and the Harvard Berkman Center for the Internet and Society.

Weinberger's first interview features novelist, BoingBoing co-editor, digital rights activist and entrepreneur Cory Doctorow. For Doctorow, piling up information without strict organizational rules can be workable provided that we have sufficiently reliable metadata. The problem is that people don't all use metadata the same way or use tags consistently, and that can be a real obstacle to making coherent sense of piles of information.

Listen to the interview or read the transcript. Cross-posted on Law Librarian Blog. [JH]

O'Reilly Answers His Call for a Blogger's Code of Conduct

Tim O'Reilly has posted his Draft Blogger's Code of Conduct on O'Reilly Radar. The draft is a follow-up to his earlier Call for a Blogger's Code of Conduct post. Opinions? Leave a comment. [JH]

Must Reading for Bloggers: Gant's We're All Journalists Now

We're All Journalists Now
The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age
By Scott Gant

Free Press, June 2007
Hardcover, 256 pages
List Price: $26.00
ISBN-10: 0-7432-9926-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9926-8

Availability: Ships on or around June 12, 2007
Order Now: Free Press or Amazon.com

Description: As the internet continues to reshape almost all corners of our world, no institution has been more profoundly altered than the practice of journalism and distribution of information. In this provocative new book, Scott Gant, a distinguished Washington attorney and constitutional law scholar, argues that we as a society need to rethink our notions of what journalism is, who is a journalist and exactly what the founding fathers intended when they referred to "the freedom of the press."

Are bloggers journalists, even if they receive no income? Even if they are unedited and sometimes irresponsible? Many traditional news organizations would say no. But Gant contends otherwise and suggests we think of these sometimes unruly online purveyors of information and opinion as heirs to those early pamphleteers who helped shape our fledgling democracy. He gives us a persuasive and engaging argument for affording bloggers and everyone else who disseminates information and opinion in the U.S. the same rights and privileges that traditional journalists enjoy.

The rise of the Internet and blogosphere has blurred the once distinct role of the media in our society. It wasn't long ago that the line between journalists and the rest of us seemed relatively clear: Those who worked for news organizations were journalists and everyone else was not. Those days are gone. On the Internet, the line has totally disappeared. It's harder than ever to answer the question, "Who is a journalist?" Yet it is a question asked routinely in American courtrooms and legislatures because there are many circumstances where those deemed "journalists" are afforded rights and privileges not available to the rest of us. The question will become increasingly important as the transformation of journalism continues, and bloggers and other "citizen journalists" battle for equal standing with professional journalists. Advancing arguments that are sure to stir controversy, Scott Gant leads the debate with a serious yet accessible discussion about whether, where, and how the government can decide who is a journalist. Challenging the mainstream media, Gant puts forth specific arguments about how to change existing laws and makes elegant suggestions for new laws that will properly account for the undeniable reality that We're All Journalists Now. For all of us who care about the ways in which the digital revolution is sweeping through our culture, this is a work of opinion that will be seen as required reading.

Editor's Note: I can't wait to get a copy! [JH]

Shucha's State of the Law Library Blogosphere Wins Award

The AALL-SIS Outstanding Article Award winner is Bonnie Shucha, Head of Reference, University of Wisconsin Law Library, for her excellent article, The State of the Law Library Blogosphere. Congratuations Bonnie! [JH]

Pajama-clad Bloggers and the Reporter’s Privilege

Of interest to "pajama-clad bloggers" everywhere. See Mary-Rose Papandrea, Citizen Journalism and the Reporter’s Privilege, 91 Minnesota Law Review 515-591 (2007). Here's the abstract:

The reporter’s privilege is under attack, and “pajama-clad bloggers” are largely to blame. Courts and commentators have argued that because the rise of bloggers and other “citizen journalists” renders it difficult to define who counts as a reporter entitled to invoke the privilege, its continued existence is in grave doubt.

The accompanying Article argues that this hysteria is misplaced. The development of the internet as a new medium of communication in many ways poses the same kinds of challenges to the reporter’s privilege that courts and state legislatures have faced for decades as television reporters, radio commentators, book authors, documentary filmmakers, and scholars seek to invoke its protections. After exploring the history and purpose of the reporter’s privilege, and the increasingly significant contributions of citizen journalists to the public debate, this Article makes a radical proposal: everyone who disseminates information to the public should be presumptively entitled to invoke the reporter’s privilege, whether based on the First Amendment, federal common law, or a state shield law. Rather than attempting to limit the category of individuals who are entitled to the privilege by focusing on the medium of publication, the “newsworthy” nature of the desired information, or a “functional” approach that unconstitutionally requires judicial scrutiny of the editorial process, the focus should instead be on limiting the scope of the privilege itself. This Article offers several exceptions to a presumptive privilege that appropriately balance the public’s fundamental interest in a vigorous and informed debate against its equally important interests in fairness and justice.

Should Online Defamation Be Criminalized?

Of interest to bloggers, Should Online Defamation Be Criminalized? by Dayton Law Prof Susan W. Brenner. Here's the SSRN abstract:

In 1961 the drafters of the Model Penal Code decided that defamation should not be criminalized, even though libel was a common law crime. They based their decision on two assumptions: One was that defamation does not inflict “harm” of a severity comparable to rape or murder; the other was that while defamation concededly inflicts a lesser “harm,” the likelihood of its being inflicted was too slight to justify the imposition of criminal sanctions. This article argues that our increasing use of cyberspace makes the second assumption increasingly problematic, and therefore requires that we revisit the need to criminalize online defamation.

Study Finds Up to 80 Percent of Blogs Host "Offensive Content"

From the press release:

ScanSafe, the pioneer and leading provider of Web Security-as-a-Service, issued its latest monthly Global Threat Report.  Among the report's key findings, up to 80 percent of blogs contain potentially offensive content, which can range from adult language to pornographic images, and about 6 percent of blogs host malware.  The most requested blog-related site during the month was blogger.com.  [RJ]

Full Vs. Partial RSS Feeds

Rick Klau, Vice President of Publishing Services at FeedBurner, reports that, contrary to conventional wisdom, there appears to be no significant difference in clickthrough rates between full and partial RSS feeds. [JH]

Bloggers Debate Code of Conduct on NPR

The blogosphere can get plenty nasty. But blogger Kathy Sierra's call for a code of conduct was greeted by a torrent of posts threatening her with violence. Now some of the Web's leading voices are pushing for more civil behavior. Listen to the NPR broadcast. [JH]

Balkin on the Legal Blogosphere

From the Yale Law Report: "Professor Balkin recently sat down for a Q & A with the Yale Law Report to give his thoughts on the legal blogosphere and how it's changing the nature of legal discussion and legal education."  [RJ]

European Legal Blogging

The Law & Justice Blog is a Belgian blog that keeps excellent track of the European legal blogosphere. They have just celebrated their first anniversary. Congratulations to blogger Edwin Jacobs for all his work.

For those interested in European legal blogging, I recommend the Law & Justice post on What Legal Rules Are Applicable to Blogs?

The Blogosphere Grows to 50 Million

At Sifrey’s Alerts, there is a new State of the Blogosphere. (I wrote about the previous one from February here.) Some quick but amazing excerpts:

• “On July 31, 2006, Technorati tracked its 50 millionth blog.”
• The blogosphere “is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago.”
• “Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size every 200 days, or about once every 6 and a half months.”
• “[O]n average, there are more than 2 blogs created each second of each day.”
• There are “about 1.6 Million postings [on blogs] per day, or about 18.6 posts per second.”

The report is well worth reading in its entirety. (Hat tip: Bag and Baggage.)

The Incredible Growing Blogosphere

David Sifrey, the founder and CEO of Technorati, has posted a "State of the Blogosphere" at Sifry's Alerts. The results of his reseach include these stunning facts:

• There are now 27.2 million blogs in existence.
• The blogosphere is 60 times larger than it was 3 years ago.
• The blogosphere is doubling in size every 5 and a 1/2 months.
• Over 75,000 new weblogs are created every day.
• On average, a weblog is created every second of every day.
• There are 1.2 million new blog posts each day, or about 50,000 per hour.

It seems obvious that law students would be well-advised to prepare themselves for blogging, and for studying (and developing) the nascent law of blogging.

The Global Blogosphere

A sitemeter (on the left, available for free here) records useful information. For example, 96% of my visits are from the US, and 1% from the UK. No surprise there. But I have also received visits (1% each) from Japan, Australia, and an “Unknown Country.” 3LEpiphany, taking over the world one country at a time. Hopefully the reader in an unknown country is a law student, thinking, “Now that’s not a bad idea….”

But on a serious and meta-blogging note, this does reveal the global nature of the blogosphere. A lawyer, law professor, or law student who puts up a blog is potentially engaging with readers across the world. If just one Japanese blogger links to me, eventually this could be picked up by other bloggers in Japan, and then news of this blog may travel throughout Southeast Asia. I will try to keep track of where this blog "travels," and report my findings.

At this stage I can already draw an obvious but important conclusion: A blog will get you noticed in unlikely places, in a way that traditional forms of communication never can. That may not always be a good thing, depending on the content of a person's blog, although I have no worries about this one. (I'm not giving out legal advice or anything similarly problematic.) But if you think that this development is a benificial aspect of globalization, then blog away. 

Update: That's funny. Based on reading Sitemeter more closely, I have discovered that Canada is the "Unknown Country." Readers can feel free to comment about the international implications of this event below.