Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP) at Berkman Center for Internet and Society (Harvard) just launched an interesting, and hopefully helpful, project called Citizen Media Legal Guide. Here is an excerpt from their official press release:

The free guide, which is intended for use by bloggers, website operators, and other citizen media creators, focuses on the legal issues that non-traditional and traditional journalists are likely to encounter as they gather information and publish their work online.

“We’ve created the legal guide to address the myriad legal issues faced by online publishers, whether they are bloggers, citizen journalists, or established journalism organizations.  Because many online publishers don’t have a background in media law, we have tried to make the guide as approachable as possible and included dozens of practical tips for avoiding legal liability,” said David Ardia, director and co-founder of the CMLP, an initiative to provide legal assistance, education, and resources for citizen media and to study the impact of law on online journalism.

The guide is covering six major sections:

1. Forming a Business and Getting Online
2. Dealing with Online Legal Risks
3. Newsgathering and Privacy
4. Access to Government Information
5. Intellectual Property
6. Risks Associated with Publication

The website of the project provides a fully searchable version of the guide, which only limitation is that it covers US only.  It would be great to have also some international perspectives as well.

Hope you will find it useful!