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Blogger unmasked, court case upended

A physician blogs about his malpractice suit during the trial, using an alias, and is unmasked in court. He settles the next day.

The case is a startling illustration of how blogging, already implicated in destroying friendships and ruining job prospects, could interfere in other important arenas. Lawyers in Massachusetts and elsewhere, some of whom downloaded Flea's observations and posted them on their websites, said the case has also prompted them to warn clients that blogs can come back to haunt them. A well known Boston personal injury lawyer who followed the case, said he had never heard of a defendant blogging during a trial.

» boston.com [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

A Fair(y) Use Tale: Disney Characters Explain Copyright

"A Fair(y) Use Tale" mashes up all your Disney favorites to humorously and effectively explain copyright law. The ten minute movie, directed by Eric Faden, came out of Stanford University's Fair Use Project Documentary Film Program. And, well, the movie is damn sure creative, and certainly seems to take the boundaries of fair use about as far as they can go.

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University created the short film. He "is an assistant professor of Film Studies and English at Bucknell University. His research includes early cinema and digital imagery. He has also made several experimental films that imagine what academic research might look like as a product of electronic (rather than literary) culture."

» watch on youtube.com » mp4 [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Young entrepreneurs' advantage: ignorance

Young people make better entrepreneurs because they're too inexperienced to know that their ideas are silly:

The mistakes novices make come from a lack of experience. They overestimate mere fads, seeing revolution everywhere, and they make this kind of mistake a thousand times before they learn better. But the experts make the opposite mistake, so that when a real once-in-a-lifetime change comes along, they regard it as a fad. As a result of this asymmetry, the novice makes their one good call during an actual revolution, at exactly the same time the expert makes their one big mistake, but at that moment, that’s all that is needed to give the newcomer a considerable edge.

» corante.com [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Curl Up With A Good Blog

Publishers increasingly turn to the web to find new talent - but they should be doing it more. Once upon a time, a writer would have to try to attract the interest of an agent in the hope they would submit their proposals to publishers and beg them a book deal. Now, however, it would appear to just be a simple matter of a writer posting their work online and then sitting back waiting for the offers to roll in.

Yesterday's announcement of this year's winners of the award for blogs turned into books, the Lulu Blooker prize, would have us believe that many publishers are perusing blogs with the aim of adapting them into books. The website eagerly claims, "Traditional publishing houses, ever in search of the next big name author, have begun to mine blogs and websites for new talent."

» guardian.co.uk [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

College Recruiters Use Student Bloggers

Colleges seeking a competitive edge are increasingly enlisting and sometimes paying student bloggers to chronicle their lives online. The results run the gamut from insightful to boring, but the goal is the same: to find a new way to win the attention of the MySpace generation. "We found it a much freer, less constricting, far more believable way of letting prospective students glimpse what was going on on campus," said Seth Allen, dean of admissions at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.

» washingtonpost.com [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Local newspaper leveraging blog popularity

While most newspapers are trying to stake bigger claims online, one new publication is pulling material off the Internet to be printed in ink. The blog items, which appear in gray boxes, are still relatively few, but Wilpers said he thought the feature would grow.

Lawrence Lessig, the founder of the Center for Internet and Society at the Stanford Law School, said that BostonNow's business model was not unique. "The traditional company is one that's just making money selling widgets or iTunes," he explained. "The Internet exploded a sharing economy with things like Wikipedia where people are doing work that creates a lot of value, not for money but just because it's their hobby. We've seen a pattern of hybrid companies like this trying to figure out ways to leverage that for a profit."

» news.com.com » nytimes.com

DRM group to fight bloggers

Bloggers "crossed the line" when they posted a software key that could break the encryption on some HD-DVDs, the AACS copy protection body has said.

Thousands of websites published the key, which had been uncovered in a bid to circumvent digital rights management (DRM) technology on HD-DVD discs. Many said they had done this as an exercise in free speech. An AACS executive said it was looking at "legal and technical tools" to confront those who published the key.

» bbc.co.uk

Blogger's Code of Conduct - Tim O'Reilly's Draft

We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. We present this Blogger Code of Conduct in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation.

1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.
   We are committed to the "Civility Enforced" standard: we will not post unacceptable content, and we'll delete comments that contain it.
   
   We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that:
   - is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
   - is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person,
   - infringes upon a copyright or trademark
   - violates an obligation of confidentiality
   - violates the privacy of others
   
   We define and determine what is "unacceptable content" on a case-by-case basis, and our definitions are not limited to this list. If we delete a comment or link, we will say so and explain why. [We reserve the right to change these standards at any time with no notice.]
   
2. We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person.
   
3. We connect privately before we respond publicly.
   When we encounter conflicts and misrepresentation in the blogosphere, we make every effort to talk privately and directly to the person(s) involved--or find an intermediary who can do so--before we publish any posts or comments about the issue.
   
4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.
   When someone who is publishing comments or blog postings that are offensive, we'll tell them so (privately, if possible--see above) and ask them to publicly make amends.
   If those published comments could be construed as a threat, and the perpetrator doesn't withdraw them and apologize, we will cooperate with law enforcement to protect the target of the threat.
   
5. We do not allow anonymous comments.
   We require commenters to supply a valid email address before they can post, though we allow commenters to identify themselves with an alias, rather than their real name.
   
6. We ignore the trolls.
   We prefer not to respond to nasty comments about us or our blog, as long as they don't veer into abuse or libel. We believe that feeding the trolls only encourages them--"Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it." Ignoring public attacks is often the best way to contain them.

» Tim O'Reilly / radar.oreilly.com

The end of military blogs?

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

» wired.com / [ PDF ] The new rules

Dell launches Spanish-language corporate blog / DellenDirecto

Dell chairman Michael Dell announced Tuesday that the company has launched DellenDirecto.com, a Spanish-language blog geared toward communicating with its customer base and other stakeholders.

Bienvenidos a DellenDirecto, el blog corporativo de Dell en español. Este nuevo blog, diseñado para nuestros clientes, seguidores y bloggers que prefieren tener conversaciones con nosotros en español, será introducido por Michael Dell durante su visita a Miami para la Cumbre de Emprendedores de Endeavor.

» DellenDirecto.com