Blogger Rage Works...Not!

One thing this case does NOT show but many may now believe is that "blogger rage" is an effective response to legal threats facing bloggers. As someone who has a great deal of experience with this let me assure it is not. That people may believe this to be the case is purely a function of not knowing what is really going on out there in the land of Internet law. For every case that turns into a blogstorm - and there are actually very, very few - there are hundreds of legal threats against bloggers that go unreported anywhere. Some of those legal threats are justified but many are not or at least are not clearly justified as the law can be murky at times. These cases are primarily defamation complaints but also include copyright and privacy complaints. Harvard Law School's Citizen Media Law Project has over 500 cases in its Legal Threats Database. The number of cases has been more than doubling each year since 2004. Eric Robinson at the Media Law Resource Center has identified over $18mm in judgements against bloggers. Folks, this stuff is starting to really add up!