Idea Lab

At the Citizen Media Law Project we've finally finished building the interface for our Legal Threats Database, and I am excited to announce its public launch today. (If you would like to read our news release, you can find it here.)

The database, which is funded by the Knight Foundation, catalogs the growing number of lawsuits, cease-and-desist letters, and other legal challenges faced by those engaging in online speech.

We have already collected legal threats from 35 states and 9 countries, and the database is growing daily. These threats range from copyright infringement lawsuits filed against bloggers to cease and desist letters claiming defamation sent to MySpace users.

Users of the interactive database can input new threat entries, comment on existing threats, and search the database in a number of ways, including by location, legal claim, publication medium, and content type. We've already been receiving a lot of interest in the database and expect that it will be useful to a wide range of people. 

We can't create this database alone, however, so we need your help to keep the information accurate and up to date. If you've been threatened with legal action as a result of your online activities or know of someone who has, please let us know by using our contact form or by entering the information directly into the database through our easy to use threat entry form.