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Citizen Media Law Project

Legal training and resources to protect free online speech. Advocacy for citizen participation in online media.
By Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Center for Citizen Media

Post Frequency: 3.9/day

Last Entry: July 20, 2010 at 10:11:43

If The Speech Can't Be Taken Seriously, It Can't Support A Claim For Defamation

Posted on April 27, 2009
In Gardner v. Martino, the 9th Circuit handed down an important ruling that should be required reading for any opportunist looking to turn mere hurt feelings into a defamation suit payday. Tom Martino is a talk radio host who is prone to make the kinds of statements we expect from talk radio...

Restaurant Girl Parody Leads to Twitter Trademark Tussle

Posted on April 24, 2009
Celebrities and popular artists, like other public figures, face a tough road if they want to sue someone for making fun of them. Many know that fair use places a high legal burden on authors and artists who bring copyright claims against those who parody them or their work...

Blogger Invokes New Jersey Shield Law To Protect Sources

Posted on April 23, 2009
NJ.com reports that blogger Shellee Hale is asking a Monmouth County Superior Court judge to protect the identity of her anonymous sources, claiming that she is entitled to the same protection as a professional journalist. Hale was sued for defamation by New Jersey-based Too Much Media, LLC, a software company that services the online adult entertainment business...

$12.5 Million Jury Verdict in Texas Internet Defamation Case

Posted on April 22, 2009
In February, a Texas jury awarded Orix Capital Markets, LLC $12.5 million in damages in a defamation case involving statements published on the cleverly named "gripe site" Predatorix.com. (The site is now disabled, but the curious can check it out on Internet Archive...

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StubHub Unsuccesfully Invokes Section 230 Defense in Lawsuit by New England Patriots

Posted on April 21, 2009
Back in November 2006, the New England Patriots went on the offense and filed a lawsuit against StubHub Inc., one of the largest online ticket resellers, claiming that the company encourages fans to violate Massachusetts' anti-scalping laws and the team's prohibition against reselling tickets...

Whatever Happened to Playing Fair?

Posted on April 20, 2009
A few recent intellectual property disputes have highlighted the fact that the decision to pursue legal action is both a legal and a moral choice. While concepts such as "fair use" help to ensure protection of both intellectual property rights while promoting creative expression, they can't replace a simple concept we all learned in kindergarten: "treat others the way you?d like them to treat you...

Speed Skater's Mom Sues Google Over Dead Blogger's Post

Posted on April 16, 2009
Earlier this month, Cherie Davis, mother of 2006 gold medal winner Shani Davis, the first African American speed skater to make the U.S. Olympic team, sued Google, Inc. in Illinois state court, seeking an injunction requiring the company to take down a blog post written by deceased sports blogger Sean Healy...

Tennessee Judge Refuses to Ban Anonymous Comments About Murder Case

Posted on April 15, 2009
A judge in Knox County, Tennessee has refused to order news organizations to disable online comments on their stories related to a murder case or to police the comments by requiring posters to provide verifiable identifying information. Defense attorneys representing four suspects in a 2007 fatal carjacking had filed a motion in February asking the judge to restrict media coverage in order to prevent jurors from learning about the case...

Goldman Sachs Tries To Bully Blogger

Posted on April 14, 2009
Michael Morgan is a Florida blogger who is a little bit upset with Goldman Sachs and its business practices. To voice his displeasure, he registered the domain name goldmansachs666.com and goldmansachs13.com and forwarded them to his blog on the financial giant...

South Carolina Court Awards $1.8 Million Libel Judgment Against Blogger

Posted on April 14, 2009
The Sun News reports that a South Carolina state court has awarded Scott Brandon $1.8 million in damages for defamation arising out of statements published on the Myrtle Beach Insider blog. Brandon, who is the head of an ad agency with offices in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, sued local businessman Donald Wizeman in April 2008, claiming that Wizeman was the author of Myrtle Beach Insider and that Wizeman had defamed him by publishing a June 2007 post calling him a "failed lawyer" and criticizing one of his ad agency's campaigns...

First Circuit Webcasting Argument Stems From Long History of Rules on Cameras in Courts

Posted on April 13, 2009
On Wednesday, April 8, the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston heard oral argument (mp3) on whether a trial of a Boston University student sued for music downloading, Sony BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, should be allowed to be webcast live. Federal district judge Nancy Gertner had agreed to allow the webcast, but the recording industry plaintiffs appealed...

Introducing Guest Blogger Eric Robinson

Posted on April 13, 2009
I'm excited to welcome Eric Robinson, a noted media and First Amendment lawyer, as a guest blogger. Eric is a Staff Attorney at the Media Law Resource Center, a nonprofit information clearinghouse which monitors and promotes First Amendment rights in libel, privacy, and related fields of law...

FOIA Ombudsman Moves One Step Closer to Reality

Posted on April 10, 2009
Last month, we reported that President Obama had begun making good on his promise of reinvigorating the federal Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"). One of the first tangible steps involved Attorney General Eric Holder instructing government agencies to favor release of documents to the public...

Phoenix Police Raid Local Blogger Who Runs "Bad Phoenix Cops" Blog

Posted on April 09, 2009
Last month, Phoenix police raided the home of Jeff Pataky, a blogger who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, a blog that, not surprisingly, has been highly critical of the Phoenix Police Department. According to The Arizona Republic, Pataky's home was raided by ten Phoenix police officers who handcuffed his girlfriend for three hours while they conducted the raid...

New Hampshire Court Tramples on Constitution, Reporter's Privilege, Section 230, What Have You

Posted on April 08, 2009
A reader recently tipped us off to a troubling ruling from a trial court in New Hampshire: The Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc., No. 08-E-0572 (N.H. Super. Ct. Mar. 11, 2009). In the decision, Justice McHugh of the Superior Court for Rockingham County ordered the publishers of the popular mortgage watchdog website, The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter ("ML-Implode"), to turn over the identity of an anonymous source who provided ML-Implode with a copy of a financial document prepared by The Mortgage Specialists, Inc...

AP Tells Google and Other News Aggregators to Pay Up or Face Lawsuits

Posted on April 07, 2009
The Associated Press has announced that it is willing to fight over the question of who owns the content its member newspapers produce, even if it means no longer playing nice with the giants of the Web like Google. On Monday, the AP announced that it would no longer allow news aggregators -- neither the big ones like Google and Yahoo!, nor the smaller, specialized sites -- to use its content without paying up...

California Court Rules That MySpace Postings Aren't Private

Posted on April 06, 2009
A California appellate court ruled last week that a young woman could not recover for invasion of privacy based on re-publication of material she posted on her MySpace page. The case involves Cynthia Moreno, a UC Berkeley student who grew up in Coalinga, CA...

Texas Moves Closer to Shielding Journalists, Bloggers' Protection Unclear

Posted on April 03, 2009
Bloggers in the Lone Star State are being left out of a law that would give journalists limited protection against subpoenas. The Texas House has passed overwhelmingly a bill that would let Texas join some 36 other states in erecting a shield for journalists who want to keep confidential information secret, even in the face of a subpoena...

Woman Files Lawsuit Against Debt Collector Over Posting on MySpace

Posted on April 02, 2009
In what appears to be the first lawsuit related to debt collection activities on a social network, a Michigan woman is suing two debt collection agencies and their principals for violating the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act for, among other things, posting information about her indebtedness on her MySpace page...

House Passes Federal Shield Bill

Posted on April 01, 2009
Dave Aeikens at SPJ and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press report that last night the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 985, the House version of a federal shield law that would provide journalists a qualified privilege against disclosing the identity of sources and turning over information obtained or created in the course of newsgathering...

Yes, You Should Have Hired a Trademark Attorney...

Posted on March 31, 2009
Another day, another cautionary tale about how staying at a Holiday Inn Express doesn?t qualify you to practice law. Enter Jamil Ezzo, an enterprising Internet maven, who runs the website at www.LocatePlasticSurgeon.com. Mr. Ezzo decided that he should file for a federal trademark registration on his incredibly creative and original business name, ?Locate Plastic Surgeon,? and in an effort to give his fledgling new business venture a leg up over the wasteful spenders that were his cutthroat competition, he figured that he should forego hiring a lawyer to do it for him...

First Twitter Libel Suit, Starring Courtney Love

Posted on March 30, 2009
Twitter gets a lot of attention these days. In recent weeks, we've seen jurors twittering from the jury box, lawmakers twittering during Obama's first address to Congress, and celebrity ghost twitterers, to name just a few examples of the growing visibility of the micro-blogging platform...

China Blocks YouTube, Shoots Self In Foot

Posted on March 27, 2009
Everyone knows that China's not fond of the Tibetan protestors. As a result, sad as it is to say, the world's press just doesn't pay much attention when China does something to smack the Tibetans down. So long as China's actions aren't too violent or otherwise noteworthy, the press won't invest more than a sentence or two on the topic...

What We Often Take For Granted: Robust Protections for Speech

Posted on March 26, 2009
Over the past few weeks everyone at the CMLP and Harvard's Cyberlaw Clinic (with whom we share an office) has been focused on the question of what legal protections courts should apply to anonymous speech (see this post about our amicus participation in the Maxon v...

Citizen Media Law Project and Berkman Cyberlaw Clinic Lead Amicus Effort to Protect Anonymous Online Speech in Illinois

Posted on March 25, 2009
Yesterday, CMLP and a number of media and advocacy organizations asked an Illinois appellate court for permission to file an amicus curiae brief in Maxon v. Ottawa Publishing. The brief urges the Illinois Appellate Court for the Third District to protect the rights of anonymous Internet speakers by imposing important procedural safeguards before ordering disclosure of their identities...

Senator Cardin Introduces Bill to Allow Newspapers to Operate as Nonprofits

Posted on March 24, 2009
United States Senator Benjamin Cardin today introduced legislation that would allow newspapers to become nonprofit organizations in what he described as "an effort to help the faltering [newspaper] industry survive." The proposed Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow "newspapers for general circulation" to operate as nonprofits under section 501(c)(3) of the U...

Attorney General Holder Puts Freedom Back In FOIA

Posted on March 23, 2009
Making good on President Obama's early prioritizing of the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), Attorney General Eric Holder officially instructed government agencies to favor release of documents to the public. CBS News reports that Mr. Holder's memo announcing the new FOIA policy reverses the policies of President Bush's former attorney general, John Ashcroft, who had ordered a presumption in favor of withholding documents...

Huffington Post: Web Pirate or Prophet?

Posted on March 20, 2009
I write a blog at my home newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, and when I get 10 or 20 comments on a post, I am feeling pretty good about myself. Arianna Huffington? Her site, Huffington Post, draws around a million comments a month. I struggle with math, but I think that's a new comment every two and a half seconds...

Peter Needed a Jew... Bourne Co Needed a Lesson in Fair Use

Posted on March 19, 2009
Congress derives its power to enact copyright laws from the copyright clause, U.S. Const. Art. I § 8. which reads: Congress shall have the power ? To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries...

Breaking News: First Circuit Denies Rehearing in Noonan v. Staples

Posted on March 18, 2009
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued an order today denying Staples' petition for rehearing en banc in Noonan v. Staples, a decision in which a panel of the First Circuit held that chapter 231, section 92 of the Massachusetts General Laws permits a private figure plaintiff to recover for defamation based on truthful statements made with "actual malevolent intent or ill will," at least if the statements relate to matters of purely private concern...

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