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Blogs to generate $2 Billion in new legal fees?

Blogs may be generating a lot of new income for lawyers who do not even have blog.

This from Memphis attorney Mark Field in an article on blogs in the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

If you have a blog and you start linking to new sites, you have to ask yourself if you have a right to do that linking. In order to avoid violating someone’s copyright, it’s a good idea to have a linkage agreement in place.

20 million blogs at $100 bucks per linkage agreement (that ought to cover phone calls, correspondence and negotiations with the likes of the NY Times or Time Warner – assuming you can find the head of linkage agreements). $2 billion in legal fees for linkage agreements. Where do we all sign up?

Or could it be that this lawyer is just out of touch with reality.

  • http://www.binarylaw.co.uk Nick Holmes

    In 1997 TBL wrote:
    There are some fundamental principles about links on which the Web is based. These principles allow the world of distributed hypertext to work. Lawyers, users and technology and content providers must all agree to respect these principles which have been outlined.
    It is difficult to emphasize how important these issues are for society. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, for example, addresses the right to speak. The right to make reference to something is inherent in that right. On the web, to make reference without making a link is possible but ineffective – like speaking but with a paper bag over your head.
    http://www.binarylaw.co.uk/index.php/2005/12/19/links-and-law/