Legal Ramifications of Blogging

I found this blogger's guide published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation discussing some of the legal ramifications about blogging. A couple of interesting points are raised:

1. "Common-man publishing" like blogs, wikis, and webpages do not provide any checks and balances that a professional writer, reporter, or journalist might have. Other than your own resources, you may not know if you're doing something wrong - illegal, defamatory, etc.
2. The legal system is always at least one step behind the cutting edge of society - while there might be laws in place to stop journalists from publishing certain material, but do those same laws apply to electronic media?
   

While some people blog to create online journals or stream-of-consciousness writings, those bloggers who write more informational articles should become more familiar with these guidelines. It makes a very good resource for teachers to use with students, as the behavior that the guide describes tends to start in school. How many students have "cut-and-pasted" a report together from the internet?

There is a separate page for concerns about student blogging - there, the issues get cloudier because of the fact that schools serve in loco parentis, and occasionally need to take additional action against students who publish improper material.