The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (UK) raises the following legal issues  for companies to consider when they include social media in their communication efforts:

• Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulation 2008 (consider: fake blogs and fake IDs by journalists);
• Advertising Standards Authority;
• Intellectual property – including copyright and trade marks
• Disclosure / Confidentiality;
• Defamation; and
• Invasion of Privacy.

Useful resources

• Creative Commons, free tools that let creatives easily mark their work with the freedoms they want it to carry.

• Own-It, free intellectual property advice for creative businesses.

•  Attributor, an online copyright tracking service, has teamed up with Creative Commons (CC) as part of a new initiative aimed at individual journalists and bloggers. The FairShare sitewill allow users to submit an RSS feed of their work and track how this content spreads and is reused online (Source: journalism.co.uk)