Sound advice from a pro

Dan Gillmor, writing in PR Week, takes Forbes to task for its cover story on so-called attack blogs:

"The most disturbing part of Forbes' package comes in the sidebar, "Fighting Back." There is some sound advice (such as, "Spot blog smears early, before they can spread, and stamp them out by publishing the truth"), to be sure. Then there's this suggestion: "Find some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your website and threaten to sue his internet service provider [ISP] under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That may prompt the ISP to shut him down." Really? Well, as I noted on my own blog in response to the story, I just "lifted" some copyrighted text. This was an exercise called "fair use" - quoting from other people's copyrighted work to create a new one - a practice in which Forbes routinely engages to do its ordinarily fine journalism.

Instead of fear and loathing, try engagement. Edelman, working with the Technorati blog-search company, just put out an intriguing blogger study. Bottom line: Show bloggers some respect, and they'll reciprocate."

//Billy McCormac