Blogging Law

I've been blogging for just over a week and when I started legal issues were not at the forefront of my mind. However, yesterday I found this posting on Digg: 12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know

The posting linked to an article posted on Aviva Directory about the laws surrounding blogging. While some of the things did not apply to my blog at the moment, several things I found of interest.

First, the advice about (point #2) deeplinking was very interesting and useful. Before I read this post, I had no problem linking directly to the page which I wanted to reference. The first tip was to not claim other people's work (pages) as your own. This is just common sense. The other point which I am going to try to do a better job at is indicating that your linking to an outside website (you'll notice above I linked to both the blog entry and the main blog for the article I am talking about).

The next point of interest (point #3) was about using pictures. The first problem that arises was using pictures that are not your own. I'll never post a picture that I did not upload to blogger. The problem that arises is copyright. While it is not likely that legal action will be taken against my blog, it is still something that I will consider in the future. The good news is, using thumbnails is legal. The only thing I need to take into account, is that for a picture to be considered a thumbnail it needs to be a standard shape and side.

Other points the article talked about include copying other's posts, infringing on trademarks, handling the content (specifically comments) submitted by users, and liability. I have a feeling this article made it to Digg because of the HD-DVD code that was being posted on hundreds of blogs and other websites. It was submitted to Digg once before and was not homepaged.

Since my blog is not that popular I am not going to make any major changes. From what I have read, I have been doing several things right. I'll just keep in mind the legal issues that are involved in blogging.