Legal Information for Bloggers

More and more lawyers are getting into blogging, both individually and for their law firms. Blogging can be a fantastic way to market your practice and to provide information for clients, potential clients and referral sources.

This morning, I was alerted to a recent post on laws bloggers should know from Aviva Directory. Thanks to Rich McIver for the alert. The post discusses 12 points bloggers should consider, and the laws that may govern.:

1. Whether to disclose paid posts;
2. Is deep linking legal;
3. The legal use of images and thumbnails;
4. Laws that protect you from stolen content;
5. Domain name trademark issues;
6. Handling private data about your readers;
7. Who owns user-developed content and can you delete it;
8. The duty to monitor blog comments, and liability;
9. Basic tax law issues in blogging;
10. Limited liability laws and incorporating;
11. Spam laws and which unsolicited emails are legal; and
12. Are bloggers protected by journalism shield laws.

Unfortunately, the post doesn’t indicate who the author is, nor does it indicate whether it was written by a lawyer. Regardless, the post is timely and the issues rasied are interesting ones, and ones which bloggers may want to review. Of course, lawyers who blog also need to be aware of the ethical rules that apply to their blogging activities, particularly since those rules vary wildly from state to state.