Explosion in Web Sites Drives Need to Offer Free Legal Advice
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The new Online Media Legal Network offers free legal advice to online journalists and others who provide information online. The network already has signed up 25 law firms representing 6,000 lawyers.
I interviewed the network’s director, David Ardia, about the need for this service and the hot issues he sees coming for online journalists and bloggers. Here’s an edited version of our interview.
Al Tompkins: Who are you trying to help with this network? What is the big need for this?
David Ardia: We created the Online Media Legal Network to help online journalism ventures and other digital media creators find free, or at least affordable, legal help. Because the practice of journalism is undergoing significant change, we have tried to be open-minded about who qualifies. At its core, however, the network is aimed at helping those who engage in journalism. This includes reporters and editors who are involved in independent online ventures, as well as people who don’t consider themselves journalists but nevertheless engage in journalistic activities.
The idea for the network came out of our work over the last three years at the Citizen Media Law Project helping online publishers understand their legal rights. Unlike established media organizations that have the resources to pursue important reporting in the face of legal challenges, many online journalism ventures lack the expertise and financial resources to protect themselves and thrive in an uncertain legal environment. … We published an extensive legal guide that addressed some of these issues, but we quickly discovered that many online publishers needed more than generally applicable legal information. They needed their own lawyers.
When online journalists or digital media creators need help, how do they contact you?
Ardia: They can contact us by visiting the network’s Web site, www.omln.org, where they can download a new client intake form, or they can simply e-mail us at legalhelp@omln.org. I should add that we are working with a number of journalism communities and organizations, such as the Online News Association and Institute for Interactive Journalism, to let folks know that we are here to help.
What questions do you suspect you will answer most often?
Ardia: We expect to get requests on a wide range of issues, including business formation and governance, copyright licensing and fair use, independent contractor and freelancer agreements, access to government information, pre-publication review of content, and representation in litigation. To date, the most common requests have focused on how to form a business and how to deal with copyright and trademark issues, as well as licensing of content.
As the network ramps up, we also expect to get requests for litigation assistance and for help with newsgathering functions.
Until now, online journalism has pretty much been Wild West stuff. Is this network your way of trying to get on the front edge of what you think will be a new wave of legal action against online journalists, and folks who might not consider themselves journalists, but content creators?
Ardia: Absolutely. When you are talking about ventures that don’t have a lot of financial resources, it is easy to imagine how one threatening letter could close an important avenue of reporting or one lawsuit could shut down a promising journalism site. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Our goal is not just to help online publishers minimize their legal risks, but also to give them the tools they need to use the law affirmatively –- for example, through freedom of information requests, open meetings laws, and access to courts and court records -– so they can better cover their beats and communities.
Do you see any evidence that mainstream newsrooms are less willing to get involved in legal fights these days?
Ardia: I think that is inevitable. As revenues decline, many news organizations are being forced to cut their legal budgets. What I am hearing is mostly anecdotal, but there appear to be fewer FOIA lawsuits and less willingness to fight subpoenas seeking newsgathering information and the identity of Web site commenters. That is why it is so important that organizations such as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the National Freedom of Information Coalition continue to thrive.
Many of the free speech protections we take for granted were the result of legal fights financed by mainstream news organizations. There is still a need for those fights and for continued vigilance. While the network is not aimed at helping established media organizations find legal help, it can allow some of these new journalism ventures to shoulder a part of the burden.
What is the single biggest emerging issue that your folks see coming for online journalists and bloggers? What advice are you giving about it?
Ardia: One of the biggest issues we see on the horizon involves news aggregation and the reuse of copyrighted material. There is a real opportunity for news organizations to take the lead in curating information around certain topics. Google’s recent partnership with The Washington Post and New York Times on Living Stories is an example. While the current prototype only aggregates information from those two organizations, I think we are likely to see this approach adopted by other news sites that will attempt to aggregate information from across the Web. This has real value to the news-consuming public, but it raises a host of copyright issues.
We plan to publish a white paper on this topic in January, but for now our best advice is to consult with a good copyright lawyer. Luckily, the network we just launched can help with that.
The Online Media Legal Network answers frequently asked questions:
- “What types of clients are served through OMLN?”
- “Who qualifies for pro bono assistance?”
- “Does OMLN provide reduced-fee referrals?”
- “Does OMLN provide full-fee referrals?”
- “What types of legal work and cases will OMLN accept?”
- “What does it cost to participate in the network?”
- “How do cases get assigned to network lawyers?”
The Committee to Protect Journalists explains that “to qualify for assistance, writers must be doing work that meets basic journalistic standards and is in the public interest:
“At this time, the network is intended for people who have U.S. legal issues, Ardia said. Print or broadcast journalists who have been laid off by media outlets and who want to set up online are part of its clientele, as are employed journalists who just want an online presence.
“But Ardia also wants to help the blogger or ‘citizen journalist’ who might run afoul of the law through ignorance or inexperience. ‘We really want them especially to come to us because they’re the ones who don’t even have the training or the intuition to raise red flags when they are writing a story about a local politician or a local developer,’ Ardia said, ‘and they are very likely to say something that could get them into libel trouble.’ “
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