Copyright Law

Mistrial by iPhone, New Technologies Present Challenges in the Courtroom

Posted on March 17, 2009
While we are generally in favor of allowing new technologies into the courtroom (e.g., live blogging, webcasts, Twitter, etc.)  in order to make it easier for the public to monitor the functioning of our court systems, sometimes technology can be taken too far...

Swartz v. Does: Tennessee Court Protects Anonymous Speech Online

Posted on March 16, 2009
Last Friday, a circuit judge in Nashville, Tennessee ruled from the bench that the First Amendment protects anoynymous Internet speech and adopted the Dendrite International v. Doe standard for balancing the speaker's First Amendment right against the would-be plaintiff's right to legal redress for actionable speech...

Wisconsin Athletic Association Fumbles with Lawsuit Over Paper's High School Football Webcast

Posted on March 13, 2009
High school athletics tend to be held out as an important tool for teaching youth important skills: teamwork, fair play, and hard work.  The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association ("WIAA") is adding one more lesson to the lesson plan: disrespect for freedom of the press...

Anonymous Blogging Guide

Posted on March 12, 2009
Thinking about launching an anonymous blog?  There are lots of reasons you might want to publish your blog or website anonymously. For example, publishing anonymously may protect you from retaliation by those who don't like what you write. We've seen plenty of bloggers harassed or fired from their jobs for what they've written...

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Coalition of Media Organizations Urges First Circuit to Reverse Dangerous Defamation Decision

Posted on March 11, 2009
Today, the Citizen Media Law Project joined numerous other media organizations and media law advocacy groups in filing an amici curiae brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to grant rehearing en banc in Noonan v. Staples.  In Noonan, a three-judge panel of the First Circuit held that an outdated Massachusetts statute allowed a former Staples employee to hold the company liable for defamation based on a truthful email sent to employees explaining the reason for his termination, so long as he could prove that the email was sent with "actual malevolent intent or ill will...

Cook County Sheriff Sues Craigslist for Creating a "Public Nuisance"

Posted on March 10, 2009
Last Thursday, Thomas Dart, the Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, filed a lawsuit against online classified site Craigslist, claiming that the site is a "public nuisance" because its users post ads in the "erotic services" category that facilitate prostitution...

Virginia Blogger Invokes Reporter's Privilege to Challenge Subpoena Seeking Anonymous Commenters

Posted on March 09, 2009
Waldo Jacquith, the Virginia blogger targeted with an outrageously broad subpoena back in January (see my previous post), filed a brief last week arguing that he should not be required to turn over the IP addresses of those who viewed and commented on an article posted to his blog, as well as his email correspondence relating to the article...

Do No Harm (But Don't Let Anyone Talk About You)

Posted on March 06, 2009
The online community reviews everything these days.  Be it via stars, thumbs up or down, or free-form comments, the denizens of the Internet are keen to offer their assessments of books, movies, restaurants, and all else out for public consumption and aggregation...

John Palfrey and Adam Thierer on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

Posted on March 06, 2009
Today, Ars Technica published a fascinating exchange between Berkman Center faculty co-director John Palfrey and Adam Thierer (Progress & Freedom Foundation, Technology Liberation Front) on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the federal statute that shields website operators and other online service providers from liability for information posted or published by users of their sites or systems...

"Skanks in NYC" Blogger Fights Back to Preserve Anonymity

Posted on March 05, 2009

Maryland High Court Joins Growing Consensus Protecting Anonymous Speech Online

Posted on March 04, 2009

Do Ads in Google News Search Change the Fair Use Analysis?

Posted on March 03, 2009

Twitter moves to federal court

Posted on March 02, 2009

Journalism that Matters at the Poynter Institute

Posted on February 27, 2009

Hot News Case - The Dialogue Continues

Posted on February 26, 2009
The purpose of copyright is to "promote progress."  We achieve this promotion by giving authors a limited monopoly over their works so that they may profit from them. This is what is known as "the incentive theory."  If we give authors the incentive to create works, they will create more of them, thus adding ideas and expression to the marketplace...

Officials in Deltona, Florida Seek to Use Taxpayer Money to Fund Libel Lawsuits

Posted on February 25, 2009
Reacting to online criticism of its elected officials, the city of Deltona, Florida has authorized city employees to file libel lawsuits at taxpayers' expense.  On February 16, City commissioners voted 4-3 to pass this resolution: After discussion, the Commission voted 4 to 3 (Commissioner Denizac, Commissioner McFall-Conte, and Commissioner Zischkau voted against the motion) for the City to provide reimbursement and expenditures of legal fees to protect both proactively and reactively the City as a government including its employees and its Mayor and those members who wish to be represented in the this motion, Commissioner Treusch, Commissioner Deyette, Vice Mayor Carmolingo and Mayor Mulder where needed from material damages, slanderous or libelous comments or claims and unsubstantiated allegations past, present and future where the Mayor feels is needed and that a report of fees expended be made available to the public so they may see the extent of damage that has been caused...

Thoughts on the Jones Day-BlockShopper Settlement

Posted on February 24, 2009
Over at the Consumer Law & Policy Blog, Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen has an excellent post on the recent settlement of Jones Day's trademark lawsuit against real estate news site BlockShopper.com.  In the lawsuit, Jones Day alleged that BlockShopper infringed and/or diluted its trademark by using the name "Jones Day" to identify two of its associates who purchased homes in Chicago and by using anchor text in hyperlinks from each associate's name back to their lawyer bios on Jones Day's own website (here, here)...

Federal Shield Bills Offer Rival Takes On Who's A Journalist; Bloggers Could Be Left Unprotected

Posted on February 23, 2009
The question of what makes a journalist is due for yet another round of debate, now that Congress is weighing two competing versions of a federal shield law for reporters. Last Friday, the Senate introduced its own version of the Free Flow of Information Act, a follow-up to the House's action two days before...

Congressional Efforts to Stymie "Libel Tourism" Rev Up

Posted on February 20, 2009
After several false starts, it looks like Congress is finally going to address the issue of "libel tourism," an unfortunate practice where foreign plaintiffs pick the jurisdiction with the most draconian libel laws in which to sue.  The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press writes that the anti-"libel tourism" bill introduced last year by Senators Arlen Specter, Joseph Lieberman, and Charles Schumer is back under consideration in the Senate...

Hey Douchebag! Your Chicks' Case is Outta Here!

Posted on February 19, 2009
Yvette Gorzelany, Joanna Obiedzinski, and Paulina Pakos are the latest plaintiffs to seek a big payday from Simon & Schuster over the book Hot Chicks with Douchebags. (Michael Minelli, a 27-year old ?club promoter," still has a pending suit in Nevada against Simon & Schuster)...

Another Reminder to Choose Your Hosting Service Carefully

Posted on February 18, 2009
My colleague Ethan Zuckerman just put up a disturbing post about Kubatana, a prominent Zimbabwean NGO, which saw its site taken down because its hosting provider, Bluehost, got cold feet after it discovered the site contained content from (gasp!) Zimbabwe...

First Circuit Upends Accepted Understanding of Truth Defense in Defamation Cases

Posted on February 17, 2009
Last Friday, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upended the generally accepted notion that U.S. defamation law does not impose liability for truthful statements.  In Noonan v. Staples, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Boston held that Alan Noonan, a former Staples employee, may hold the company liable for defamation based on a truthful email a superior sent to employees explaining the reason for Noonan's termination, so long as he can prove that the email was sent with "actual malevolent intent or ill will...

UC Berkeley Website on Evolution Sued for Violating Establishment Clause

Posted on February 16, 2009
In celebration of the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth (you knew he was born on the same day in 1809 as Abraham Lincoln, right?), I bring you news of our first legal threat directed at an online publisher asserting that a website violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment...

Texas Judge Orders 178 Anonymous "John Does" Who Posted on Topix Be Revealed

Posted on February 13, 2009
Once again, the right to anonymous speech is being tested, this time in Texas, where a judge has ordered news portal Topix.com to reveal the identities of 178 forum posters accused of defaming a Texas attorney and his wife. The Clarksville Times reports that Mark and Rhonda Lesher were charged in April 2008 with the aggravated sexual assault of a former client of Mark's legal services...

Pennsylvania Student Sent to Jail For Lampooning Assistant Principal on MySpace

Posted on February 12, 2009
The Associated Press is reporting that two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses...

Neuwirth v. Silverstein: California Appellate Court Reverses Ruling Granting Motion to Strike

Posted on February 12, 2009
On Monday, a California appellate court reversed a trial court that had granted Richard Silverstein and Joel Beinin's motion to strike Rachel Neuwirth's defamation lawsuit against them under the California anti-SLAPP statute (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425...

Juicy Campus Dies - Holmes' Posse Rejoices

Posted on February 11, 2009
Juicy Campus -- often the target of anti-free-speech types in higher education has died. And I am glad. Juicy Campus was a cesspool with virtually no redeeming qualities. (But that isn't why I am glad it is dead) Compare to AutoAdmit, which actually had (and still has) some worthwhile discussions...

Citizen Journalist's Guide to Open Government

Posted on February 10, 2009
J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism at American University's School of Communication, just announced the launch of "The Citizen Journalist?s Guide to Open Government," an extensive multimedia module to help citizen media creators understand how to obtain public records and gain access to public meetings...

Citizen Media Law Project is Hiring a Staff Attorney

Posted on February 09, 2009
Are you a lawyer interested in dealing with emerging legal issues relating to the intersection of law, journalism, and new media on the Internet?  Would you like to help online journalism and new media ventures meet their legal needs?  Do you want a stimulating yet laid back work environment? The Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society is looking to hire a Staff Attorney/Resident Fellow to assist with the development of a pro bono network of media lawyers and law school clinics to support online journalism and new media startups...

Egyptian Security Police Detain Blogger and Graduate Student Philip Rizk

Posted on February 09, 2009
Reuters, the LA Times, and the International Herald Tribune report that Egyptian state security police detained blogger Philip Rizk on Friday night, when he was returning to Cairo after a march to raise awareness about conditions in the Gaza Strip.  Rizk is a graduate student in the Middle East Studies program at the American University in Cairo, a political activist, and documentary filmmaker, and he blogs about Palestinian issues on his blog tabula gaza...

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