EFF Wins Another Battle for Fair Use and Free Speech

Posted by Myrna the Minx on July 28, 2008 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Danny O’Brien, a charming Brit who also happens to be the international outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is someone else I met at BlogHer 08 (you’ll have to scroll down the EFF staff link above to see his bio). The EFF has been one of the best friends bloggers have ever had–Bloggers’ Rights! O’Brien (who has grown quite a beard since his bio photo) came to BlogHer to remind us of that friendship and to do some impressively energetic outreach, while NEVER once providing anything close to anything that resembled professional legal advice!

We discussed the Rogers Cadenhead’s run in with the AP and the subsequent blogger AP boycott, as well as issues of libel, DMCA take down requests, and copyright violations. Political bloggers aren’t the only bloggers who get into legal trouble. These issues effect everyone, from food bloggers that want to publish recipes to parent bloggers who document a disagreement with their school.

If there was one message O’Brien wanted to get out to all bloggers, it’s that you should call the EFF about any legal concerns that you have–they really do want to help. The EFF is also a nonprofit group and depend on donations, memberships, and other kinds of public money.

All of this brings me to EFF’s big win today in the case between CAIR and radio show host/hate monger Michael Savage. The win made me think of Spocko’s Brain and his valiantly fought battle against another radio show host/hate monger Melanie Morgan and KSFO. Unfortunately, Spocko did have to change his web hosting because his company at the time dropped him, but every new win by other blogger champions like Spocko and the EFF (who also helped Spocko) helps.

In fact, while I am thinking about it, I would strongly suggest that BlogHer include a legal session in every single future BlogHer conference. So, I’m going to give you a few moments to subscribe to EFF’s Deeplinks blog now. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Okay, now that you’ve done that, go check out Danny O’Brien’s personal blog Oblomovka which is really interesting (and when I say interesting I don’t say that in the “I don’t know what else I can say that would sound nice” way. I mean it in a completely earnest way. Except for that part about “sculking around.” That’s interesting, but in that other way.