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.

There is a growing but reluctant acceptance among academia that blogs may be an acceptable form of academic scholarship (but why write a short note when a long one will do?).

So a Bloggership symposium at Harvard was a first.

Concurring Opinions provided a wrap-up. (via Blawg Review)

In Kaplan v Go Daddy Group & 2 Ors the owners of Hunter Holden have been able to continue an interim injunction against the owners of <www.hunterholdensucks.com> a site (probably a blog) that encouraged critical comments of a Sydney car dealership.

In a case that seems to be the first Australian version of the taubmansucks.com case, the New South Wales Supreme Court was reluctant to base the injunction on either fair trading or defamation grounds. Instead it relied on the tort of injurious falsehood.

In the end it continued the injunction on the basis of the balance of convenience and that there were no public interest issues involved. Australia has no First Amendment right of free speech.

No cybersquatting issues were raised.

Some key quotes:

28 The only element of the tort that could be disputed is whether what the second defendant has published was false.  As Hayne J said in Palmer
Bruyn & Parker Pty Ltd v Parsons at paragraph 154,  "If there is no false statement made it is not enough to establish injurious
falsehood to show that the plaintiff is held up to ridicule." In the same way, it is not enough for the plaintiffs to show that the website was established maliciously for the purpose of disparaging the second plaintiff to its injury.  To succeed at a final hearing the second plaintiff must show that the statements the second defendant published were false….

37 The balance of the convenience is all one way.  The second defendant would suffer no damage if the injunctions are continued.  On the other hand, if the injunctions are dissolved, the second plaintiff may suffer substantial damage which it could never prove as potential customers may be deterred from visiting it.