Andrew Sullivan really gets it. This man understands the significance of the Blogging phenomenon. “Blogger even provides a handy, idiot-proof rubric for a simple site. And all this is provided for free. It was, I realized two years ago, the nascent Napster of the journalism industry. Just as Napster by-passed the record companies and brought music to people with barely any mediation, so Blogger by-passed established magazines, newspapers, editors and proprietors, and allowed direct peer-to-peer journalism to flourish.”

This is a VERY perceptive piece. At one point he says:
“Peer-to-peer journalism, I realized, had a huge advantage over old-style journalism. It could marshall the knowledge and resources of thousands, rather than the certitudes of the few.”

What to do if anyone ever tries to fire you: demand to see all company e-mails relating to you.

According to this interesting Financial Times article, the tendency to commit things to e-mail that people would never dream of writing on paper appears unaffected by knowledge of the legal – not to mention reputational – trap it sets for the employer.

Charles Russell, the law firm, paid an estimated £10,000 compensation to a black secretary last month after she accidentally caught sight of an e-mail sent between two lawyers concerning her replacement.

“Can we go for a real fit busty blonde this time?” wrote Adam Dowdney. “She can’t be any more trouble and at least it would provide some entertainment!”

A shame faced Mr Dowdney later apologised for the message as being a “senseless and thoughtless joke”.

“It’s common on e-mail to find a forthright discussion about someone’s performance or about possibly making them redundant,” says Tim Russell, head of the employment group at Norton Rose, the law firm. “If I’m acting for someone, I always seek pre-determinative e-mails for proof that they’ve been stitched up.”

How to tell if a ‘cease and desist’ letter from a lawyer trying to close your Website down is serious…

Click on Chilling Effects, and you will find all kinds of useful information about your legal rights and entitlements posted by law students from Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley. According to this New York Times piece, the site invites Internet users to submit the notices they have received, all of which will be annotated by the students. As the database grows, the site’s operators plan to publish a regular update that they hope will help document for legislators and others how intellectual property holders are using or abusing their rights.

What a great use of the Web!