Copyright Law

CMLP Celebrates Its First Year of Blogging

By David Ardia

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Citizen Media Law Project's blog. Back on May 20, 2007, we didn't have much in the way of staff (it was just me) and we didn't have a whole lot to say (again, it was just me), but we knew we had to start somewhere. My first post, entitled Time to Launch, begins with the following prose:

Don't let anyone tell you that launching a website is easy. It isn't. After several false starts and a lot of time spent trolling the Drupal community site (I'll talk more about Drupal in a later post), we are ready to put this out to the world, in beta form at least. Let's just say it has been a learning experience, which I guess is apropos because that is what this site, and the Citizen Media Law Project, are about: learning. . . .

Fortunately, other more talented writers joined the CMLP and the blog took off. With an average of about 5 new posts a week from 8 different authors, we've managed to publish a total of 267 blog posts over the one-year period (you can receive these posts automatically by signing up for our newsletter and/or RSS feeds). Because it can often be a challenge to come up new and exciting topics to blog about (and I am feeling especially lazy today), I thought I would trot out the tried and true retrospective list.

So, in case you were wondering which CMLP blog posts are the most popular, we've got you covered. I am not sure what this list tells us about the project or you, our readers, but it's interesting nonetheless. Here are the titles of our ten most popular blog posts (ranked in order of page views with the original publication date included):

1. Legal Blogger Threatened by Big Law Firm Over Posting of Ridiculously Bad Song (August 27, 2007)


2. Dell Tells Site to Take Down Posting, Then Admits Goof (June 18, 2007)


3. WordPress Blocked in Turkey (August 21, 2007)


4. Court Orders Wikileaks.org Shutdown, Then Grants Limited Reprieve? (February 18, 2008)


5. Primer on Copyright Liability and Fair Use (January 24, 2008)


6. A&P Sues Two College Kids Over (Hilarious) "Produce Paradise" Video (August 30, 2007)


7. Embedded Video and Copyright Infringement (July 10, 2007)


8. Court Refuses to Enjoin School From Suspending Student Over YouTube Video (May 24, 2007)


9. Citizen Media Law Project Launches Legal Guide (January 31, 2008)


10. Primer on Immunity -- and Liability -- for Third-Party Content Under Section 230 of Communications Decency Act (December 16, 2007)

As you can see, popularity isn't always correlated with deep legal analysis. (I should note that the most popular entry in the CMLP legal threats database bears this out, as it involves Tucker Max's sexual relationship with a former Ms. Vermont.) Nevertheless, we'll try not to take this ranking list as a spur to "sex up" the blog.

On a serious note, we've strived to make the blog a conversation starter. Please continue to add your comments to the posts you like and don't like (and send us feedback). In the next month we'll be adding discussion forums to the site, so you'll have even more opportunity to participate. In the meantime, if you are looking for additional ways to get involved with the CMLP, see the Participate page.

I'll close with another quote from our first blog post, which continues to sum up the central goal for the CMLP:

We want to build a community of people who are interested in facilitating citizen participation in online media and in protecting the legal rights of those engaged in speech on the Internet. The only way to do this is to make this a conversation.......which can start right now.

Full post as published by Citizen Media Law Project on May 20, 2008 (boomark / email).