Blog Sites Beware: Liability Lurks in Bloggers’ Postings
If your site allows visitors to post digital files or comments (e.g. in an online blog, as well as in a forum or chat room), you could be held liable for copyright infringement if any of their postings infringe the rights of another person, even if you are unaware of the infringement. Under general copyright principles, you would be strictly liable for their copyright infringement, even if you are “innocent”.
You could also be liable for defamatory statements posted by bloggers.
The Playboy Case And Copyright Infringement
A good example of an “innocent infringer’s” liability that occurred before the enactment of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is the case of Playboy Enter., Inc. v. Frena, 839 F. Supp. 1552 (M.D. Fla. 1993). In this case, Playboy alleged that the defendants who operated a bulletin board service (BBS) were liable for copyright infringement. Subscribers to the defendants’ BBS had illegally taken copyrighted photos owned by Playboy and uploaded them onto the defendants’ BBS.
The court found the defendants liable for copyright infringement, despite the fact that the defendants did not upload the photos (the subscribers uploaded them), and the defendants were unaware of the presence of the infringing photos until the lawsuit was filed.
The court stated: “…intent or knowledge is not an element of infringement, and thus even an innocent infringer is liable for infringement …”.
The DMCA, enacted in 1998, provided a “safe harbor” so that this harsh result can be avoided, but service providers must take affirmative steps to qualify for it… or else you will suffer the same harsh fate as Frena.
To qualify for the DMCA “safe harbor” from strict copyright liability, you are required:
* to post a specific notice on your site (Terms of Use); and
* to file the DMCA Registration Form with the US Copyright Office.
Liability For Defamatory Statements
In addition to liability for the copyright infringement of bloggers, another pitfall to avoid if you permit visitors to post to your site is liability for their defamatory comments about another person, a competitor, or another product.
Defamation is an intentional false communication, made either orally or in writing, published to a third party, which injures another person or company’s good name or reputation.
While it is clear you will be liable for defamatory statements posted by you or your employees on your site, what about defamatory statements posted by bloggers? Will you be liable?
Statements which consist of pure opinion are not actionable… however, merely stating that a statement is pure opinion does not make it so. For example, a law school professor was awarded $3 million in damages arising out of defamatory statements published on a student’s site.
Online defamation may occur in the context of product reviews where strong statements are posted such as “do not buy this product because it will not perform as advertised”.
In addition, actionable defamation may occur where a site publishes untrue promotional statements about a person or company. For example, in one recent case, the Wall Street Journal was sued by the Harrods department store for publishing the statement that Harrods was the “Enron of Britain”.
Congress came to the rescue of “interactive computer services” in 1996 with subsection (c) of the Communications Decency Act which provides: “No provider or user of any interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 47 USCA Sec. 230(c)(referred to below as “Section 230″).
Section 230 was intended to overrule prior case law which routinely held that online providers were liable as publishers and speakers for third party content. Now, under Section 230, absent an affirmative showing by a plaintiff that an online service provider is the author of a defamatory message, email, or post, the provider should almost always avoid liability for defamation. In other words, if you or your employees are the authors of defamatory statements, you’ll still be liable, but if your website visitors are the authors of defamatory material, you won’t be liable.
A word of warning about another pitfall — be careful in assuming an obligation to monitor messages, email, or posts contributed by your site visitors or in exercising editorial control over them. If you assume an obligation to monitor, or if you maintain editorial control, and if you fail to screen out defamatory statements, you may be liable, despite the protections of Section 230.
For this reason, your Terms of Use should clearly state the extent to which you exercise editorial control, if at all, over messages, email, or posts of site visitors. And it’s always best to reserve the right to monitor postings, but not the obligation to monitor.
Conclusion In summary, if you have a blog, take the steps discussed above that are required to qualify for the DMCA “safe harbor” from copyright infringement. Ensure that that your employees do not post defamatory statements on your blog, and affirmatively disclaim any obligation to monitor posts by bloggers.
Top Money Making Blog Sites
Blogging is a wonderful hobby to have, not only can you express your views with blogs, but you can also make a healthy amount of money with blogs.A lot of people believe that the only way they can make money from blogs is to promote or sell products. While that is easily the most profitable way to use blogs, for people that don’t want to sell anything you can make money “selling” ad space. By placing advertistments on your blog you can make money without having to sell anything to anybody. All you need to do is find a company that pays advertisers and become an affiliate. With all of the blogs that there are on the internet, added in with the thousands of blogs that are created daily if you want to make any real money selling ad space you need to separate yourself from the “pack”. You can do this by becoming a part of advertising networks. Here is a list of advertising networks :1. Adbrite: Offers a variety of advertising options to bloggers like text ads, banner ads, video ads, full page ads and also inline ads. You can decide on what type of ad is best suited for you blog. 2. Expoactive: This ad network offers you with a lot of freedom right from choosing specific ads you want to display on your site, to the visual appearance of the ads. You are paid per click.3. crispads: With this ad network you can negotiate different prices for your ad space. So as your blog traffic increases you can demand more money in return. 4. Chitika: They also offer several advertising options to choose from. Some of their ad formats are – shoplincs, eminimalls, owna, linx etc.If you don’t want to promote affiliate products or sell your own products online you can try out some of the ad networks listed above to make you blog profitable.
To learn how to make money using a blog visit – http://www.seegarsproducts.com/bloggingonsteroids
How To Know If You Should Start A Blog
It is believed by most experts that blogging is a financial mistake for most small businesses. Blogs are best used for news-oriented sites, or sites that feature “the latest” or “the thought of the day.”However, blogging can also be a strong “add-on” to a successful, profitable website. For this reason, we will examine how to look at blogging vs having a website and how to know if you should start a blog.Several companies offer blogging software, and Blogger is probably the most widely used free blogging platform available. Blogger, owned by Google, allows you to set up a blog quickly using its design templates. Other widely used blogging software include WordPress and TypePad.Blogs must be updated frequently — several times a week, if not daily or even several times a day — in order to hold readers’ attention. Bloggers must scrupulously adhere to the golden rule of blogging: “Thou must update frequently.” It is a time-consuming process because people who read blogs expect a certain amount of fresh content on a regular basis — at a minimum, weekly — preferably several times a week. This is not true of a theme-based website.Blogging should definitely be used in combination with other marketing methods and not in isolation. They should NOT be used to build career momentum because they are not right for everyone — especially if you don’t have a strong viewpoint or valuable information to share. Blog posts, in contrast to conventional websites, do not have a specific order. The software lacks what businesses do need to actually make money (which is the ultimate goal). They interlink to each other with gusto, creating what they call “the blogosphere. Ultimately, they merely keep adding new posts, one after another, without editing out the old and without pulling related posts together into cohesive and fresh articles whereas, theme-based content sites develop and update the content into more complete, useful, cohesive articles called “web pages.” Bloggers rave about how blogs are “more dynamic” and “promote conversations,” but many prominent bloggers turn commenting off! This communication medium is heavily covered by both online and offline media because they “get” the concept. Bloggers, of course, form part of the online media and is actually for a very small percent of the population. It has become very popular in the last few years and even the most non-technical of netpreneur are now using a blog to promote their businesses. Blogs have come a long way in a very short time, but again, they’re not for everyone. A lot of people don’t want to read their own company blogs. It has to fit into the corporate culture. Blogs about your company and your products may sound interesting to you, but people rarely tune into a “commercial” blog unless there is additional information of real value. Blogging may not be suitable for all small businesses, say blogging experts in a New York Times report. However, they do provide a simple way for family and friends to stay connected from different parts of the world by sharing stories, photos, videos and more.
Marketing My Blog â Free Tips Inside!
Much deliberation has been done about your siteâs design and layout. Rich, quality content has also been written. The fact that your blog is presently on the net, and that you have exhausted all the means needed to keep it in good shape, your queries about âmarketing my blogâ will then surface.Marketing on the real world entails reaching out, physically, to your intended market. Much goes the same way with internet marketing. Like in the real physical set-up, you cannot expect people to come up to you to ask what you have to offer. In the internet, people will not visit a site they do not know exists, and this is where your concerns about âmarketing my blogâ emerges. To let people know about your siteâs existence, there is a need for you to actively join communities and announce the virtues of your blog. The reasonable method would be to choose those communities that are in line with your blog niche. Through this way you will meet a lot of people with concerns and questions you and your blog can provide answers to. There is no better way to gain exposure and visitors than answering forum questions with your site link attached on your signature. You will soon discover that the best solution to your problems about âmarketing my blogâ lies heavily on self-promotion. Go ahead and put your best foot forward. A direct invitation towards your site is hard to ignore especially if you are able to provide interesting and useful responses. Visiting other blogs and leaving informative comments is another productive method to create networking. This is a good method to market your blog by encouraging other people to link on your site and be exposed to their respective groups. You will realize that it takes a lot of work to address your concerns about âmarketing my blogâ, but once properly done, the exposure can grow exponentially on its own. Once you have your marketing foundation laid, you will then have extra time to spend on other time consuming but effective means for site promotion, that of submitting your feeds to several sites. You can create your account and submit your feed to blogbunch, bloghop, getblogs or blogtoplist. The list for feed submission site is endless and useful if you have the time to spare. Extra traffic is also assured if you cater to social bookmarking. Propeller, Technorati and Digg are among the top social bookmarking sites along with Yahoo, Google and MSN. A social bookmark site allows members to keep a list of favorite links which can be shared to their groups of internet connections, friends and family members. Submitting your URL to these social bookmarking sites allows your product to be included in their lists and be a part of the circulating sites for sharing. Having a blog will not ensure profitable returns without a sensible marketing plan. Choosing ones that will work and spending the right amount of time and effort in sustaining a good blog is the smart technique to use whenever one is faced with concerns about âmarketing my blogâ.
