Blogger’s rights

Blogger’s rights revealed: How to blog with attitude?

The vast development of information technology has changed the way people communicate with each other. Printed media was used to be popular until broadcast media landed on earth. Today, online media takes a giant leap to leave both behind. Online media is the new wave for information and ideas to be distributed and shared in a blink of an eye. Now, everybody can be a journalist. And the vast changes in this digital age have made it harder to regulate bloggers activities and protecting citizen journalists the way it should be.

Thanks to the internet that makes ideas and opinions easily and quickly get published. But there is big responsibility as a consequence to the development. Blogging with attitude can be tricky.

The rule of a blogger is actually quite simple. Don’t use information that has a copyright. This applies to the fruit veggies image you download from Google to complement your juice recipe on your personal blog! It sounds ironic, isn’t it? Getting sued for vegetables image?

There has been a debate whether to apply rules of journalism to bloggers. The administration has not yet figured out how to apply the regulations. But to be compiled, bloggers do have rights! The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) explained the legal rights for bloggers. This is a good advantage for bloggers to equip themselves with a GPS for legal issues.

A blogger is a journalist

If you engage in news values (no matter which one it is), then you are treated as a journalist. And it gives you the protections a journalist can obtain.

Freedom of speech

As a public diary, a blog is intended to express the opinions of its writer. It can be political issue or an interpretation of an information extracted from media, or anything else. Legal system should not stop democracy and the right to speech.

Pseudonym is a Right

Because the freedom of speech includes an anonym source, it is better to blog safely without excerpting your real name. In fact, it is a good idea not to give away your real identity.

While you have all the rights to blog, you might want to consider taking a safer step to write anything on the web, even if it is in your private space.

If you blog about products review, make sure you have consult with a counsel. In some cases, firms sued citizen for blogging negative review about their products and accused them for bringing negative information to public. The product disparagement targeted ordinary bloggers to pay damage they were not supposed to.

The right to publish something on your blog can be tricky especially when it has something to do with other’s intellectual property. To blog safely, it is better that you don’t excerpt anything in raw unless you are endorsed to do so. Rewrite or do something better than that! Before you publish image that doesn’t belong to you, asking permission is a polite way to start.