Brewing Controversy In The Blogosphere

Bruce MacEwen recently published a series of analyses of a recently released report published by ALM media titled AmLaw 100, apparently a detailed report with statistics about top 100 american lawyer firms. His analyses(Bruce says he has worked on the analyses of the raw data published as part of the AmLaw 100), as published are available here, here, and here) up on "Adam Smith, Esq." ALM Media requested Bruce to take them down as it deemed that these are violative of their copyright. Bruce who initially acceded to ALM media’s request has now decided to retain his writings and analyses. Bruce claims that he is basing his decision on the collective intelligence that he received from the on-demand network of blogosphere, whose opinion he had sought on this issue besides IP & Non –IP lawyers.
Generally speaking, I very much doubt if a few blog posts could violate the IP of a detailed report( in this case, I have not seen the original Am Law report, nor seen the actual request made on Bruce while demanding that he take out his analyses from his blogsite.What interests me is that the fight is between Lawyers, Law firms – part of the legal fraternity on issues centered on legality of publishing things about rankings and analyses of legal firms . Watch this closely for evolving developments. This may have implications for the blogosphere on the whole.