Today’s Drudge Report features, in fire-engine alarm drama king red, a report on an Apple Computers debate in San Jose. Apple lawyers are maintaining in a California court case that online journalists are not “legitimate members of the press” and not entitled to the same legal protection as traditional journalists.

Like that fruity computer behemoth, Matt Drudge and his then-affiliate, AOL, were fielding similar questions in 1998. When Matt was sued for $30 million for posting a storythat Sidney Blumenthal had a history of spousal abuse, courts initially ruled that he was not a journalist. Blumenthal dropped the case before it was settled, but AOL was cleared of liability

One disturbing ramification of the status of online journalists is that while they may get no respect legally or mediawise, they can be vulnerable to plagiarism from employees of recognized news outlets. A blogger’s material can be “inappropriately appropriated” by a professional journalist whose boss has more money and resources to fight the underdog in court — or hire someone to spin bad PR.

To be fair, I do not know what really happened in the Exhibit A I’m linking to (The IJC blogger’s word against The New York Observer), but the room for abuse is unsettling. I mean, it’s nice and all to think a respected reporter is mining this space or yours for potential stories, but not all will give credit where credit is due.

Unfortunately, this is one of those postings where I simply have to make my point in the few paragraphs I have time for. We “illegits” have day jobs, you know.