Wish I had seen the original unedited post for this one that started the legal trouble, does anybody have a link to a cached copy somewhere? I wonder if B.L Ochman had seen it before writing her piece entitled: Why You Shouldn’t Blog When You Are Pissed Off:

Ilkka Talvi, concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony for nearly two decades until he was fired a year ago, posted on his blog site yesterday a retraction and apology for the attacks he made last month on Maria Larionoff, SSO’s acting concertmaster.

If Ms. Ochman didn’t see the original, then how can we judge so generally how bad the original blog post was or not? Was the blogger really pissed off or was he joking? The PI article doesn’t provide a link either so it seems to me like just because there was a settlement here (out of court?) then there never was any legal proof of wrongdoing on Talvi’s part. Could have been the advice of a team of attorneys working for both sides and not a judge. I’m a bit skeptical here.

I wonder if what Talvi originally wrote was way over the top (yes/no?). The article does say that real names were used originally and then changed which definitely seems suspicious to me. The Seattle PI article Ochman is referencing also indicates that Talvi was trying to be humorous, at least in part, of his original blog post. Hmm, seems like the humor didn’t go over so well in the music community.

This is sort of reminiscent of those fired for blogging about work stories in the sense that it is negative blogging about work. That is a very, very risky endeavor. Write about what you know, yes, but not without permission with who you work with and work for and be particularly careful when writing about what you are working on (without permission). You probably won’t be sued for saying something good about somebody you work for or by taking their picture, but it is important to get people’s permission as they may be private and not want this type of information on the web.

Us bloggers, despite our uncanny desire to record our lives, have to be respectful of the people we work with and for (clients) at our place of business. We should consult our employer(s) about blogging before doing it. Seems like these very generic, basic rules should be part of a simple blogging guideline for any company or individual. There are so many other things besides work that can be blogged, this isn’t so restrictive, is it?

Again, anybody have the cached original post for this one? I’d like to get the whole story instead of just the reactions.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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