Tomorrow, we will be launching a new podcast series discussing a range of issues related to citizen media, journalism, and law. We'll continue the series on a weekly basis each Friday. The podcast series is being produced by Colin Rhinesmith, the CMLP's new digital media producer.

Tomorrow's podcast will cover the new federal shield bill, co-blogging and cease-and-desist letters, and the Phoenix New Times arrests.

There's been extensive coverage (here, here, here, and here, to start) of the arrest and subsequent dismissal of charges against Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, the founders of the Phoenix New Times, a print newspaper that also publishes on its website. I'll add my voice to the chorus in order to elaborate on some of the legal issues at stake.

The facts are as follows: Starting in July 2004, the Phoenix New Times published a number of articles critical of Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. In one article published on its website in 2004, the newspaper disclosed Arpaio's home address as part of a story raising questions about his real estate holdings. The address was available in public records on the County Recorder and State Corporation Commission websites.

Authorities in Maricopa County began a criminal investigation of the newspaper for violation of section 13-2401 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which makes it a felony to

knowingly make available on the world wide web the personal information of a peace officer, justice, judge, commissioner, public defender or prosecutor if the dissemination of the personal information poses an imminent and serious threat to the peace officer's, justice's, judge's, commissioner's, public defender's or prosecutor's safety or the safety of that person's immediate family and the threat is reasonably apparent to the person making the information available on the world wide web to be serious and imminent.

Yesterday, the OpenNet Initiative released an excellent report on the recent Internet shutdown in Burma, entitled "Pulling the Plug: A Technical Review of the Internet Shutdown in Burma." Besides the eye-popping technical analysis ONI was able to carry out in a matter of weeks, the report contains a great overview of the dramatic events of late September and early October 2007, including the role that citizen journalists and

I'll be at the CMJ 07 conference in New York tomorrow moderating a panel on the Viacom v. YouTube litigation and Sam is at the Online News Association Convention in Toronto. Postings may be a little light as a result.

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed -- for the first time ever -- a federal shield bill by a vote of 398 to 21. This follows on the heels of the Senate Judiciary Committee's passage of a similar bill on October 4. The House version, however, makes a critical change in the language regarding who is entitled to the bill's qualified protections by excluding those who do not receive "substantial financial gain" for their activities.

Under the House version, H.R. 2102, a "covered person" is defined as

I've highlighted the new language in the quote above, which came about as the result of a last minute amendment by Representatives Boucher and Pence, two cosponsors of the original bill that did not include this ill-conceived requirement. In contrast, the original version of the House bill extended its coverage to any person "engaged in journalism," including "a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person."

This change significantly narrows the bill's coverage and is plainly aimed to exclude non-traditional journalists. But it doesn't just exclude those whom some in Congress derisively call "bloggers." The new definition would likely exclude many freelance journalists who must rely on other work to supplement their incomes. Do we really want judges to be deciding whether a journalist is earning enough money to qualify for protection?

More to the point, is financial remuneration the criterion we want to be using when we draw the line between those who are entitled to engage in journalism under the protection of a federal shield law and those who must venture forth unprotected? It seems to me the answer is no. To limit the privilege only to journalists who receive "substantial financial gain" misses the point of how media and journalism are evolving. Most crucially, it misses the growing -- and essential -- role of citizen media creators. They are the closest analog since the nation's founding to the Tom Paine-style pamphleteers the First Amendment was designed, in part, to encourage.

We formally launched the Citizen Media Law Project's website back in April, so it's about time that I provided an update on what we have been up to and where we are headed in the next few weeks and months.

William Patry has an excellent post today called "Misuse via Cease & Desist Letters." It discusses the recent trend of lawyers asserting copyright in cease-and-desist letters in an effort to prevent posting of those letters on the Internet.

Robert Niles, editor of the Online Journalism Review, posted a helpful article today about updating website Terms of Use in order to minimize inter-user abuse and conflict. He advocates telling users in plain language what rules the website expects them to follow when they post comments and suggests rules prohibiting impersonation, offline harassment, and the creation of multiple unlinked user accounts. He also recommends that websites adopt explicit rules setting forth the parameters for permitted commercial solicitation (if any). His remarks on impersonation are worth excerpting in full:

Insist that readers be who they are, and not attempt to pass themselves off as someone else. If you[r] site allows pseudonymous posting, insist that readers use a consistent handle or account name, and take whatever technical steps you can to keep people from posting under others' names.

Don't allow readers to mislead others about their identity, either. Warn readers against omitting information from their profiles or posts that would lead other readers to believe that they are someone other than who they are. Elected officials shouldn't be allowed to pretend that they are not when posting to a discussion about local politics, to use the Telegraph's example.

These recommendations are important from a practical, ethical perspective more so than from a legal perspective because CDA 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1)) gives website operators immunity for publishing content submitted by others under most circumstances. From this practical, ethical perspective, however, I agree wholeheartedly with Niles. There is a difference between respecting and promoting a user's ability to engage in anonymous speech and allowing a user to mislead others and manipulate the tools put at his/her disposal. Perhaps a Term prohibiting impersonation would be hard to enforce (maybe not?) -- at the very least, a Term of this kind puts users on notice about what kind of community you want to create and makes a statement about engaging in speech and debate responsibly.

Columbia Law School's Program on Law & Technology, directed by law professor Tim Wu, recently launched another valuable online resource: Keep Your Copyrights: A Resource for Creators.