Bloggers are a diverse bunch and thanks to organiser Peter Black the Australian Blogging Conference managed to have something of interest for most people: politics, legal issues, research issues, creativity, citizen journalism, education and corporate and business blogging.

I deal with the business blogging session here. And there’s a note on the politics of blogging here and here. So this note deals with the legal issues and other thoughts on the day

First off, my observation was that they weren’t all techies. I had just read Cory Doctorow’s When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth and was relieved to be with ordinary "authentic" people (see attendee’s list).

I was spoiled for choice but was pleased I attended the Legal Issues session. The theme ended up being "what are the risks related to what you say on your blog, what other people say on your blog and what you link to?". Lead by Professor Brian Fitzgerald and Nic Suzor from QUT and Dale Clapperton from Electronic Frontiers Australia over 2 hours we ranged from copyright to defamation, primary and secondary liability issues, "innocent dissemination", a brief history of internet law, privacy, what we’d like in a blogger’s guide to law and current legal actions.

The bottom line: understand the risks and take strategies to minimise them (and don’t rely on US centric information).

I see that Dale Clapperton has posted a note on "backdoor defamation" issues we didn’t get to properly.

Also noted were Legal Issues for Wikis (pdf) and  Blogs and the Law.