Kevin: German publishers have accused Google and other internet companies of exploiting their content to build lucrative businesses and have failed to share the rewards. The new ruling coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and the business-friendly, liberal Free Democratic Party have "pledged to create a new kind of copyright to protect online journalism". "Details of how the proposal would work have not been spelled out, but publishing executives say one possibility would be to require a license for any commercial use of published material online." Private, noncommercial use of news articles would remain unrestricted. Good luck determining private, noncommercial use. I'm a professional journalist. Would posting content on my personal blog be considered noncommercial or as an extension of my work?
There is something troubling about this article in that it starts to muddle a proposal for licencing for online journalism and 'piracy' of films and music.

Kevin: Very significant ruling in the UK. British regional press publisher Newsquest (a division of US-based Gannett) has obtained a potentially significant court ruling on the issue of how far they are protected from legal action over user-generated web content. "Newsquest says the High Court judgement clarifies for the first time that newspaper websites hosting user-generated content are, subject to certain conditions, protected from liability. The ruling suggests that publishers cannot be held responsible for potentially libellous material posted by website users so long as it is removed as soon as possible."

Kevin: Mary Turck works with training citizen journalists for the Twin Cities Daily Planet. She gives five tips and directs you to other resources they have developed in the training process. "We have created twenty very short lessons on topics ranging from focusing a story to transparency to best practices for quotations and paraphrases."