Why do you publish photos or articles on the web if you don’t want people using or criticizing them? This is perhaps one of the standing issues that caters to the hyperlinking issue of blogs today.

We all know that blogs are more of critics at work. While some may provide good viewpoints, there are also bad ones. People may use photos or images from published sites but the fact is, a link back is a form of respect to which owner’s rights are still being observed. But for some people, this does not seem to be enough.

For purposes of not wanting people to “borrow” or “use” your stuff, then why publish them on the web? Keep them on your computer or your digital camera if you don’t want people using them!

He’s facing three lawsuits for copyright infringement, but that’s OK with notorious celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who sees himself as something of an activist for bloggers’ rights.

“In a perfect world, you’d rather not be sued than be sued, but I think from his standpoint all these lawsuits essentially stem from the same exact issue,” his lawyer, Bryan Freedman, tells The Showbuzz. “It’s the rights of bloggers to the fair use of published photos that are on the Internet and the right to use them for satire and commentary. I think Perez is excited to be the one that makes the law in this area and is fully prepared to go all the way if he needs to in order to make that law.”

Perez, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, takes celebrity photos, doodles on them, posts them on his popular blog, perezhilton.com and adds commentary.

“He uses them in a transformative way and then opens a dialog of commentary. Whether you like the commentary or not is a different story,” said Freedman.

“I totally disagree, obviously, that what he does constitutes fair use,” Brandy Navarre, VP of X17, which sued Lavandeira in November for more than $7.5 million, told The Showbuzz. “I don’t feel that what he does qualifies (as satire). These are not all newsworthy photos, (and) he’s not altering the photos enough to make a difference. Sometimes just writing a question mark isn’t satirizing significantly enough to make a difference. And the volume at which he uses the images is out of bounds.”

Universal City Studios Productions LLP filed a lawsuit against Lavandeira in February, claiming a stolen image of a topless Jennifer Aniston from the set of her movie “The Breakup” was posted on Lavandeira’s site.

In late April, five photo agencies joined together to sue Lavandeira for $7 million for using their photos and videos.

His lawyer argues that Lavandeira has merely used photos that were already published elsewhere on the Web.

“If it’s not already out on the Internet, it’s protected,” argues Freedman. “He’s not in the business of taking watermarks or anything like that. I can’t for the life for me understand how a photographer has been hurt when the photograph has already been published on the Internet.”

Navarre claims Lavandeira’s actions have hurt her company’s bottom line.

Source: Perez Hilton, Defender Of Bloggers Rights?

[tags]blog news, blogger news, disputes, copyrights, infringement, hyperlinks, links, violations[/tags]

The advent of blogging has served as a good alternative towards the usual web pages that people have been conceptualizing as of late and TypePad developers know this all too well. With this in mind, blog sites have become the ideal alternative towards putting up web sites, focusing more on content rather than images.

TypePad has offered a new TypePad page that allows users to setup websites as an individual blog. With the trend imminent, it is certain that this new offering will be taken up by millions. Here are some excerpts from this new development news of TypePad:

“If you’re a TypePad blogger, we know you’re serious about making a great blog. But what about the parts of your site that don’t fit into your blog? A detailed contact page listing all the ways someone can get in touch. What about a biography that explains just how you became such an expert on the topic you blog about? Or, maybe your business’s blog needs a good set of directions to your office, along with a map. A couple extra pages on your site would add a lot of power and flexibility to your blog.

With the new TypePad Pages, you can use all the power of TypePad’s posting tools to create as many individual web pages as you want. And those pages have all the power of TypePad’s widgets and rich media features, automatically inheriting the look and feel you’ve chosen for your blog.

The TypePad interface you use every day to update your blog now lets you create a web page as easily as you’d write a post. (That means you don’t have to learn any complicated new tools.) And you can even set a Page to be the home page for your blog, so it’s the first thing readers see when they go to your URL. “
Go beyond blogging with TypePad Pages

[tags]typepad, blogging, blogger, problogger, problogging, web sites, web pages[/tags]

It is evident that this new wave of advanced marketing strategies using blogs and content writing has been the new resort of most companies in the world of business today. These are the new elements that have helped businesses evolve into better managed companies aimed at attaining set goals.

Marketing is the life stream of any business entity and all marketing people will exhaust all means to use any advanced and new ways of making marketing strategies work. Hence, the new age of marketing has turned to these technology driven gifts called blogging and content writing and have had headway in doing so as we can see today.

In a time where marketing automation is a big focus, it’s important not to forget that your website is, “…the place that brings everything together in a unified place…” This is a very important point. Think about the times you’ve received marketing communications from a company, gone to their website, and been confused because what you encountered there was nothing related to their marketing communication. Consistency of story is hugely important to having your content drive action. – New Rules of Marketing & PR

[tags]blogging, blog marketing, marketing practices, marketing strategies, advertising, promotions[/tags]

Blogging has been encouraged as a means of letting out clogged ideas in the mind of people but to date, most of the scattered ideas have become more of a nuisance rather than a helpful tool in the employee development of most companies. Such has been notable in the turnover rates of employees who find them looking for other jobs mainly because their employers are not to forgiving when they are able to read what they are sharing or hiding to express.

Some companies have gone to the extent of peeping into the personal journals and sometimes, these may bring back unlikely reactions. These reactions may be deemed as just cause for their termination, something that is clearly to watch out for on the part of the employees as a whole.

“A lot of people think they’re protected by the First Amendment in cases where they’re not,” said David Williams, a partner at law firm Morris James LLP in Wilmington, Del., and a past chairman of the employment and labor law section of the Delaware State Bar Association.

Union collective bargaining agreements and individual employment contracts generally say a worker can be fired only for what is known as “just cause.”

Yet, 92 percent of private-sector workers aren’t covered by collective bargaining, and employment contracts usually are limited to high-level executives.

Even though in Illinois, a company has the right to terminate an employee at will, one local attorney believes that without a policy in place, a worker should not be fired for speaking out on an outside-of-the-workplace issue.

“If there is no agreement, then in my opinion, you can say and do whatever you want,” said Al Williams, a Dixon attorney who specializes in workman’s compensation cases.

Broad statements on workplace free speech can be hard to make though, according to Williams, because company policies and situations can be so varied.

“It is very case-by-case and deal-by-deal, but an employer has to give a reason for firing you, they can’t just do it,” Williams said. – Let the bloggers beware: Companies’ rules may restrict what employees can and can’t say

[tags]blogger, problogger, employee rights, collective bargaining, CBA[/tags]

Blogs have been getting the various criticisms for their open minded input of thoughts and for one yellow journalist, hitting on blogs as a hopeless form of ticket towards getting into the journalism biz was clearly stated.

But the question is, do bloggers have that drive to grab a career in journalism? Perhaps not. Blogging is freedom to express but this does not mean that they are inclined towards pursuing a journalism career. Threatened perhaps? Whatever the case may be, blogging should not be considered as a form of stepping stone towards journalism and this attack is becoming more of a defense mechanism for journalists who seem to feel a threat from bloggers who simply want their voices heard.

Eric Berlin calls Bullard’s column “a hateful, condescending piece” and suggests Bullard turn on his brain before attacking the blogosphere.

Vinny Lingham calls Bullard

a “fool with no understanding of new media and it’s impact on society….This is exactly the mentality that is leading to the decline of offline print as a source of information, because the people entrenched in the offline world are so resistant to change, they cannot keep up with the times.”

Vincent Maher calls the column “a dazzling display of arrogance.”

Says Pierre deVos, “Bullard seems to be rather kind, actually.” But then he notes:

[Bullard] claims that the content in the Sunday Times is of a certain quality because it has been through editing processes. But one only has to skim that newspapers pages to be made aware of the sorry state of journalism in South Africa. Sometimes I wonder whether those people get paid to write so badly about such brain curdling boring issues. The New York Times it ain’t.”
Ironically, on the same day, The Times also published “Business Missing Out on Blogging,” which notes:
“Blogs tend to be rich in fresh information and relevant news. More importantly, this information can be commented on by the people who visit the blog site. So it is not just a flat brochure, like a website…” – “Professional” Journalist Spews Hateful Attack on Blogosphere

Call it crazy, but the widespread crackdown of people abusing the law and taking them toward higher levels for that matter has totally gone out of hand. The latest blow was the reported imprisonment of an Egyptian journalist named Huwaida Mitwalli for reporting a supposed torture in Egypt.

This is totally outrageous and surely violates the acclaimed freedom of the press. Authorities have had their problems on upholding the law and properly identifying the proper means of holding back information. While everyone knows that hot news is the actual bread and butter of journalists, being convicted for reporting something that is indeed factual is totally ridiculous today. Things are simply becoming personal and abusive in any nation at this point.

The sentencing of Al-Jazeera journalist Huwaida Taha Mitwalli to six months in prison for her reporting on torture in Egypt makes a mockery of World Press Freedom Day, Human Rights Watch said today.

Mitwalli, an Egyptian national who also reports for the London-based daily Quds al-Arabi, was convicted by a Cairo criminal court on May 2 for “possessing and giving false pictures about the internal situation in Egypt that could undermine the dignity of the country” in connection with an Al-Jazeera documentary about torture in Egypt. The court also fined her 20,000 Egyptian pounds (US$3,518).

“Egypt’s sorry record of torture is only made worse by its practice of punishing journalists who dare to speak about it,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. – Egypt: Prison for Al-Jazeera Journalist Who Exposed Torture

[tags]blog news, blogger news, freedom of the press, politics, law[/tags]

With over millions of bloggers today, rarely would some people stand out and receive commendation. But for Britt Bravo, being acknowledged to be one of the best bloggers in East Bay is as sweet as they come.

Bravo was selected by the East Bay Area at their annual best issue of blogs paying tribute to her efforts for her constant blogs and podcasts today.

By profiling individuals and organizations who enact various visions of utopia, Oakland’s Britt Bravo expresses her own hope for a better world. Through Big Vision, she broadcasts interviews with many of the East Bay’s most successful activists for social change. Since its debut in early 2006, Big Vision has profiled more than twenty local visionaries, including Priya Haji (CEO and founder of fair-trade gifts and accessories store World of Good), Melinda Kramer (cofounder of Women’s Global Green Action Network), and Eric Fenster and Ari Derfel (founders of organic catering and outdoor adventure company Back to Earth). The name of another of Bravo’s blogs, “Have Fun * Do Good,” may be her daily mantra, but “big vision” is an equally apt tagline — beyond her writing, teaching, and podcast production work, she provides consulting services to nonprofits and individuals looking to create their own positive change.- Best Podcaster: Blogger most dedicated to social change

[tags]blog news, blogger, problogger, blog jobs, podcasts, east bay[/tags]

For the people who have started to take up blogging and are planning to take it to the next level, the Blogging and Beyond mentor program is something they should look into. This especially holds true to the people who are looking beyond blogging as a hobby. Blogging has also been known to be a good marketing tool and companies are well aware of the benefits it can give once they get the proper people to handle the position.

“What do 97 savvy professionals have in common?

They all participated in the successful Blogging and Beyond Mentor Program with The Blog Squad.

Now it’s your turn.

We’re opening this program to you at a fantastically reduced introductory fee so you can experience it for yourself.

Yes, for the price of a couple of Starbucks frappaccinos, you can put more boost into your marketing than a shot of caffeine!

The Blogging and Beyond Mentor Program gives you a competitive edge for marketing your business online.” – Ready to take your marketing to the next level?

[tags]blogger, problogger, blog marketing, blog mentoring, mentoring program[/tags]

Twitter is the new way of being able to post messages and relaying them towards a selected number of friends through the use of mobile devices. Twitter is similar to posting anything a person would want but with a 140 character limit.

Not all people would be comfortable receiving messages that may be nonsense, but considering the advancement that people, particularly the younger generation, with regards to messaging is concerned, Twittering is tagged to be the next big thing in technology advancement in the mobile computing and instant messaging world.

“Essentially Twitter gives you the chance to publish your thoughts on the fly, or tune into the thoughts and information streams of other users from around the world.

The key to the success of Twitter is brevity – each message that you write can only be a maximum of 140 characters long. This has seen the rise of what has been called ‘micro-blogging’ or ‘micro-publishing’, with some users sending out tens or hundreds of messages a day to their friends, followers and the public.

Rather than a replacement for blogs as a publishing medium, Twitter offers an addition to the options available to you. While blog posts tend to be longer in form, Twitter posts are ideal for making single points or sharing a single piece of information, like a link, instantaneously. Think of the difference between an email and an SMS message, and you are in the right ballpark.

Messages can be accessed through the Twitter website – via personal or public pages – or through your favorite Instant Messenging tool or mobile phone. With the ability to follow the stream of messages created by any number of friends, Twitter allows you the chance to have an always-on stream of information wherever you go.” – Robin Good’s Sharewood Tidings

[tags]twitter, instant messaging, mobile computing, blogging, posting[/tags]

So we are all aware that Earth Day is fast approaching. While there are posts relative to the upcoming event, there are people who have dedicated most of their time sharing about the ecological nature of things through having their own blogs and blogging about facts of green events.

Rebecca Carter has acknowledged the use of blogging as the new tool for providing information towards people and this has been more than helpful. In such events as Earth Day 2007 on Sunday, proper citation towards her efforts is something that justified the actual intent of blogging if used properly and given a chance to grow.

“It’s hard to find out about getting involved locally,” she said.

Carter said she does it as a community service to help bring attention to the local nonprofits that may not have yet taken advantage of blogging as an information-sharing medium. And with Earth Day approaching Sunday, her blog is buzzing with South Florida events.

“Our generation gets information in different ways now,” Carter said. “The local Internet has some catching up to do to cater to the way that the younger generations are expecting their media.”

Carter isn’t the only one realizing the potential of reaching out to the blogosphere to make a difference environmentally. Doug Young, president of the Broward County Audubon Society, said a majority of his members and donors are of an older, less tech-oriented generation. He realized that creating a blog is vital to the survival of his nonprofit as a means of communicating with younger generations.

“In this day and age, going to meetings is just not worth it for a half-dozen reasons,” Young said. “Therefore, electronic medium is the way to go.” – Eco-blogs target younger generations in South Florida

[tags] earth day 2007, ecology, greens, blogging world, blog world[/tags]