Phil's summary

Phil Malone writes:

Citizen journalists and bloggers are speakers, creators of content, publishers and distributors of their own and others' content, and a lot more. At times, citizen journalists benefit from the law, as when they want to decide how the work they have created should be distributed or reused. At other times, citizen journalists may be threatened by the law and the risk of liability for the content they create, the ways they use other people’s content, the comments others leave on their sites, or even the fact that they are speaking out.

Help us brainstorm the most significant ways in which legal considerations are affecting Citizen Media, both good and bad, and the kinds of information and resources you would find most helpful in order to benefit from the good and avoid or defeat the bad. We are especially interested in citizen journalists’ actual legal concerns and experiences and how well existing resources, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s excellent Legal Guide for Bloggers, have helped you deal with those concerns.

This open discussion is an initial step in a new collaboration between the Center for Citizen Media and the Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School and perhaps cyberlaw clinics at other law schools. Our aim is to better understand the realities of citizen journalists’ legal challenges and to provide information, resources and tools to help address those challenges.

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