We've finally finished building the interface for our Legal Threats Database, and I am excited to announce its public launch. If you would like to read our news release, you can find it here.

The database, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, contains legal threats from 35 states and 9 countries, and it is growing daily. These threats range from copyright infringement lawsuits filed against bloggers to cease and desist letters claiming defamation sent to MySpace users.

Users of the interactive database can input new threat entries, comment on existing threats, and search the database in a number of ways, including by location, legal claim, publication medium, and content type. We've already been receiving a lot of interest in the database and expect that it will be useful to a wide range of people. As Sam Bayard noted yesterday, the database already contains a fascinating array of lawsuits, as well as more informal threats like cease-and-desist letters and emails.

We can't create this database alone, however, so we need your help to keep the information accurate and up to date. If you've been threatened with legal action as a result of your online activities or know of someone who has, please let us know by using our contact form or by entering the information directly into the database through our easy to use threat entry form.

The database is the product of a tremendous amount of work by CMLP staff and students, especially Sam Bayard, Jillian Button, Daniel Ostrach, David Russcol, Matt Sanchez, Daniel Ungar, and Stefani Wittenauer. Our website designer, Chris Wells from Redfin Solutions, has worked tirelessly on getting all of the functionality operating properly. A big public thank you to everyone who helped!

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.

The CMLP is looking to hire law students (and lawyers) to work as paid interns for the 2007-08 academic year. Interns will perform legal research and draft sections of the CMLP’s legal guide and will analyze recent lawsuits and other legal threats involving online speech for our legal threats database. Interns will be required to work onsite at our offices at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts one day per week, but otherwise will be permitted to work remotely.

If you are interested in working on cutting edge legal issues relating to the intersection of law and journalism on the Internet, please apply. You can find more information on the position and where to apply here. (For information about other opportunities at the Berkman Center, come to their Open House on September 24th.)

On a related note, if you are a college student -- and a blogger -- you should consider applying for the Daniel Kovach Scholarship Foundation's college blogger scholarship. Applications for the scholarship, which pays $10,000, are due October 6, 2007. Details can be found at the Foundation's website.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is seeking a Media Fellow to undertake a project to comprehensively study the new/citizen/social media landscape. The fellow will perform a critical analysis of where citizen media has fallen short, where it has delivered, and how we as a community can help it to do better. Details: