In case you’re not familiar with the case of Josh Wolf, he’s the video-blogger and/or anarchist-troublemaker who was found in contempt of court for refusing to turn over his videotape of a demonstration in San Francisco (the video is on his website) and for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating an attack on a police officer and an arson attempt that took place during the demonstration.

Until his release earlier this month, Wolf had spent more than six months behind bars. If you believe that he qualifies as a journalist, that’s the longest time a journalist has spent incarcerated for refusing to turn over evidence to the state. If you don’t believe that he’s a journalist — well, then some guy who refused to co-operate with police just spent six months in jail. And for what? Because he didn’t want to turn over a videotape that doesn’t really show anything anyway, in a case in which the criminal charges for the events in question had already been dropped.

Salon magazine tries to get to the bottom of what exactly Wolf is, and what he thought he was doing by refusing to turn over the tape, and why he eventually decided to release it (although he didn’t have to testify) in a somewhat confrontational interview.

Part of the argument is that Josh Wolf didn’t describe himself as a journalist (he described himself as an artist, video-blogger, anarchist, etc.) and wasn’t affiliated with any kind of media outlet. In a Washington Post piece, blogger and lawyer Eugene Volokh argues that Wolf wasn’t entitled to legal protection because he wasn’t protecting any confidential sources.

Wolf and others have argued, however, that the First Amendment was meant to protect journalists from becoming instruments of the state, and therefore his resistance was crucial to the protection of those values. In interviews, Wolf has talked about how the First Amendment was originally written to protect pamphleteers such as Thomas Paine — who were arguably closer to being the 18th-century version of bloggers than to what we call journalists.

Also worth reading: Jackson West’s take on his friend Josh Wolf and the significance of the case at NewTeeVee.

According to several reports, Josh Wolf is either about to be released from prison or has already been released. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s the young video blogger who was jailed for contempt of court — for refusing to turn over a video he made of a G8 Summit demonstration that turned violent — and wound up serving more than seven months, the longest a journalist has ever been jailed for contempt.

The Center for Media and Democracy has a statement written by Josh, and as part of the deal with prosecutors the video blogger has posted a copy of the video he took of the demonstration on his blog. He writes: “During the course of this saga I have repeatedly offered to allow a judge to be the arbiter over whether or not my video material has any evidentiary value. Today, you the public have the opportunity to be the judge and I am confident you will see, as I do, that there is nothing of value in this unpublished footage.” He adds:

“I had wanted to reveal to you, the public, how ridiculous and without merit this matter is, but could not publish this tape until I had received assurances from the US Attorney that it would not be considered partial compliance and strengthen their claims that I might eventually be coerced.”

Watching the tape, it’s striking how incredibly innocuous it is — it starts with some young anarchists, the earnest type that anyone who has been to university has likely encountered, expounding their somewhat naieve views to a handful of onlookers, and then there is a quiet and sparsely attended march. The police show up, but there is little actual violence. Newspaper boxes are dragged into the street, but that’s about it.

At the end, it’s night-time and a police officer appears to be sitting on a man lying on the sidewalk. Officers arrive and tell the crowd to disperse (according to the federal grand jury that ordered Wolf to turn over the tape and testify, an officer was hit on the head and a police car was damaged by fire, neither of which are shown in the video). Worth seven months in prison? It’s hard to see how.