Over the last couple of months I’ve had a couple folks scrape all the content from my RSS feed and use it on their own “blogs.” I use quotes because they looked like they had no other purpose than taking the content produced by others and surrounding it by ads for their own commercial benefit.

I made clear to them that simply because content is syndicated in an RSS feed doesn’t give them the right to scrape it for their own.

Nevertheless, to prevent this in the future, I’m going to experiment with truncating the RSS feed. If folks find the lede interesting, they can then come to the site and read the rest. It isn’t really the way I want to blog — reading this stuff should be easy — but I also don’t like having stuff stolen.

While I’m at it I may also tinker with those little social networking buttons that I see elsewhere. Where will it lead? Beats me. But over the last year this little corner of cyberspace and turned up not only in national press, but also international (India and Great Britain).

And I’m open to suggestions and feedback from others as to whether or not the changes work well.

As per the NY Times late this afternoon, New York’s press shield law that protects news reporters from being forced to testify regarding sources would be extended to include bloggers under a new bill.

According to the Times, the bill under consideration would expand the scope of the law to include “journalist bloggers,” with a blog defined as

“a Web site or Web page that contains an online journal containing news, comments and offers hyperlinks provided by the writer.”

I don’t usually use this space to re-post stories without additional commentary — I save that for my Linkworthy posts — but I thought this was sufficiently important. And the lack of time that I have right now prevents me from writing more.

Links to this post:

may 22 roundup
recruiting municipalities to sue: “class-action lawyers target online travel sites” [roger parloff, fortune, earlier]; “new york press shield law would extend to bloggers (and define blogging)” [turkewitz]; keep publishing that paper or …

posted by Walter Olson @ May 22, 2009 12:08 AM

The question frequently arises: Is blogging helpful for a lawyer’s business for someone in BigLaw? And this question pops up because General Counsels at Fortune 500 companies won’t exactly hire someone just because they have a blog.

But will being quoted in the paper as an expert put that lawyer’s name in front of a General Counsel? Today — in the wake of the Supreme Court in Wyeth v. Levine upholding the right of a claimant to bring a state court tort action for mislabeled drugs despite FDA policymakers trying to discourage it — we take a peak at whether a blog will get the blogger in front of the media.

Mark Hermmann of Jones Day in Chicago and Jim Beck at Dechert in Philadelphia write the Drug and Device Law Blog, which has been pretty much all pre-emption all the time for the last two years. And the media did, indeed, turn to them for quotes. (Of course, both were already big shots in their field, with Beck having a drug and device law book on the subject, a copy of which sits on my shelf). But let’s take a look:

From Adam Liptak at the New York Times (No Legal Shield in Drug Labeling, Justices Rule):

“This narrows the playing field,” for implied pre-emption arguments, Mark Herrmann, a corporate defense lawyer in Chicago, said of the decision. “This does not eliminate the playing field.”

From Bloomberg news (Wyeth, Drugmakers Lose as Top U.S. Court Allows Suits): “It’s still leaves open some turf for industry, but it narrows the playing field,” said Mark Herrmann, a Chicago product-liability lawyer who represents companies and co-writes a blog on drug and medical-device law.

From American Lawyer (Supreme Court Rules Against FDA Preemption; Let the Plaintiffs Rejoicing Begin!):

“It is a complete slap in the face to both the FDA and the Bush administration’s position on preemption,” said Dechert’s James Beck (one of the bloggers at Drug and Device Law). The decision limits the preemption defense to cases where the FDA has made an “affirmative decision” on use of a particular drug, Beck told us. Dozens of cases that had been formally or informally frozen pending the Wyeth ruling, he said, will now move ahead at full steam.

And if you search their url in Google you will see the links to their blog and posts piling up fast in high profile joints like Above the Law, Volokh, Overlawyered, meaning they have succeeded in spreading to yet more people the fact that they are leaders in their field. You can bet there will be more stories, and more links.

In an article recently Hermmann wrote about the subject (Is blogging worth it?) noted:

[B]logging raises both your personal and your law firm’s public profile. As a result of two years of blogging, I’ve appeared on television shows on CNBC, Bloomberg and C-SPAN. I’ve been interviewed by, and quoted in, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and countless regional papers. I’ve been invited to speak at academic symposia, continuing legal education programs and state Bar conventions. A major academic press has approached me about a book deal.
…
Blogging surely causes your name to cross the desks of potential clients, and that might cause clients to think of you when they’re retaining counsel.

When blogs are used as a means of direct solicitation (call me, I know what I’m doing!) they fail badly. When blogs are used to demonstrate knowledge by discussing an interesting issue, they succeed.

As they teach you in trial lawyer school, “show, don’t tell.” And blogging isn’t any different.

Updated: Beck/Herrmann are rounding up the coverage that they have received earned: Press Coverage of Levine

Previously at my site:

• Preemption v. Preemption v. Preemption (Wyeth v. Levine) 10/29/08

• Preemption Gone Wild (How Bush Pushed Immunity for Big Business) (10/15/08)