The Blog of Lisa Morosky

I found a great resource on intellectual property laws and how they relate to bloggers. It’s extremely important to have a basic understanding of this stuff so you don’t end up in a sticky situation.

This information is put out by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is an organization made up of “lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists” that defends “free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today”. You can find out more about them here.

Here are all the questions they answer on their page about intellectual property laws:

• I found something interesting on someone else’s blog. May I quote it?
• What is fair use?
• May I freely copy from federal government documents?
• Am I free to copy facts and ideas?
• How does a Creative Commons license help?
• I’d like to let other people copy from my blog. Can I license it?
• If a reader comments on my blog, does she license the rights to me?
• Can I “deep link” to someone else’s website or blog post?
• When can I borrow someone’s images for my blog post?
• I want to parody someone. Can I use some of their images and text in my parody?
• My ISP received a DMCA complaint about my weblog. What does that mean? Can I do anything about it?
• What are the rules for filing a DMCA notification?
• What are the counter-notice and put-back procedures?
• Can I sue if my site is wrongly taken down?
• When can I claim the safe harbor for comments others post to my blog?
• I want to complain about a company. Can I use their name and logo?
• Can I use a trademark in my blog’s name or in the title of a blog post?
• What is a right of publicity claim?

Definitely bookmark and explore their website further. They’ve got all kinds of legal information as it applies to bloggers.