legal issues for bloggers...

There is an interesting article in Wisconsin Lawyer about the many legal issues involved in blogging. Blogging is a relatively new concept in the legal world, a world which generally evolves relatively slowly. It takes years of case law and legislative enactments for the legal world to fully come to grip with new ideas. This is especially difficult in an age when technology moves so quickly that the legal world is often only beginning to deal with a new form of technology when the technology becomes outdated. This may be the case for blogging.

Never the less, the legal issues are intriguing. Specifically, I find the decision of the FEC that certain blogs should be considered "the online equivalent of a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication" quite strange. Does this mean that if I report news, I can put on my resume that I've been published? I am also curious to see how the courts will deal with blogs and the defamation standard in the coming years. It is my personal feeling that the accessibility of "commenting" on a blog should change the standard, but the courts may feel differently.

And, of course, free speech rights are lurking in the background of all of this, which will only make the issues more intriguing.