The Citizen Media Law Project is pleased to announce that its Online Media Legal Network (OMLN) is partnering with the Online News Association (ONA) in a joint effort to help innovative online journalism ventures meet their legal needs. We're honored to join forces with such a key player in the field and looking forward to a fruitful relationship.
From the press release:
The Berkman Center’s Online Media Legal Network (OMLN) announced today that it is partnering with the Online News Association (ONA), the premier association for professional digital journalists. The partnership will provide ONA members access to the OMLN’s growing network of media, intellectual property, and business lawyers across the United States.
OMLN, which launched in November 2009, is a referral network for lawyers and law school clinics that wish to offer legal assistance to online journalists and other digital media creators. Lawyers participating in OMLN provide qualifying clients with pro bono and reduced fee legal assistance on a broad range of legal issues, including business formation and governance, copyright licensing and fair use, freelancer agreements, access to government information, pre-publication review of content, and representation in litigation. The network is administered through OMLN’s website at http://www.omln.org/.
Founded in 1999, ONA has more than 1,600 professional members whose principal livelihood involves gathering or producing news for digital presentation. The membership includes news writers, producers, designers, editors, photographers, technologists and others who produce news for the Internet or other digital delivery systems. Since 2000, ONA has administered the Online Journalism Awards, which recognize major media, international and independent sites and individuals producing innovative work in multimedia storytelling.
"Journalists starting up their own sites now need to focus on issues that help them create and sustain their businesses," said ONA Executive Director Jane McDonnell. "This partnership helps address one of the most critical—providing a legal safety net for small news operations." "We are excited to be working with ONA and its members, who are some of the most creative and innovative thinkers in online and digital media," added David Ardia, director and co-founder of the OMLN.
