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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

Search Warrants in the Sky: FBI Collects Info from Google Docs

Posted on April 27, 2010
If you spend any time at all online, you've probably seen?and, depending on the effectiveness of your spam filters, received in your email?ads extolling the supposed virtues of acai berry, a so-called "super food" that has been a big seller for the past couple of years...

Police Seize Gizmodo Reporter's Computers Over iPhone 4 Leak

Posted on April 26, 2010
Gizmodo announced this afternoon that California police seized computers and servers from the home of its reporter/editor Jason Chen on Friday night. They've posted the search warrant, Gawker C.O.O. Gaby Darbyshire's letter to the police disputing the legality of the seizure, and Chen's first-hand account of what happened...

A Video Recap of CMLP's April 9th Conference, Journalism's Digital Transition

Posted on April 26, 2010
On April 9, 2010, the Citizen Media Law Project and the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard Law School hosted a one-day symposium and CLE program, "Journalism's Digital Transition: Unique Legal Challenges and Opportunities." The event celebrated the launch of the Online Media Legal Network (OMLN), a legal referral service that connects qualifying online journalism ventures and digital media creators with lawyers willing to provide legal services on a pro bono or reduced-fee basis...

CMLP Updates Legal Guide Pages on Protections for Anonymous Speech

Posted on April 22, 2010
Today, CMLP published extensive updates to its legal guide pages on the legal protections for anonymous and pseudonymous speech on the Internet. We overhauled the general page on First Amendment protections to reflect significant changes in the law over the past few years, and updated the state pages to include many new cases on the topic...

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J-Lab: Exploring a Networked Journalism Collaborative in Philadelphia

Posted on April 21, 2010
Our friends at J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism just released a report analyzing the media landscape in Philadelphia. The William Penn Foundation commissioned J-Lab to conduct the study of Philadelphia's media landscape and the state of public affairs reporting and make recommendations for a possible media investment strategy...

A Plea for a Tech-Savvy Justice

Posted on April 21, 2010
The United States Supreme Court is, when it comes to technology, almost completely ignorant. Not exactly a news flash, I know. After all, much was made in the days of Justice Sonia Sotomayor's nomination process about her high level of tech-savvy as compared to her predecessor, Justice Souter, whom Popular Science called a "famous Luddite...

What Happens to a Meme Deferred? The Downfall of Hitler Finds Out

Posted on April 21, 2010
Memes never die. They just fade away. Downfall subs were a meme to last a thousand years, but survived only six. If you have never seen Hitler complain about Brett Farve?s pseudo-retirement, the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format wars, or the American election cycle, then this may be your last chance...

Breaking News: Dow Jones Files "Hot News" Case Against Briefing.com

Posted on April 20, 2010
A Dow Jones press release on BusinessWire announces that the financial media giant filed a lawsuit today against Briefing.com, alleging that the subscription-based financial site misappropriated its headlines and articles. The complaint, filed in U...

Lost and Found: California Law and the Next Generation iPhone

Posted on April 20, 2010
Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past few days, you've heard that a newfangled iPhone mysteriously turned up in a fancy beer bar in Redwood City, California, and photos of it ended up on Endgadget and Gizmodo. Since yesterday, new details have come to light, and the prodigal "iPhone HD" is headed back to the mothership, thanks in part to decidedly low-tech California law on lost property...

Student Journalists in Virginia Need Strict Enforcement of Privacy Protection Act

Posted on April 20, 2010
James Madison University students celebrate each semester with a large block party in a popular neighborhood near campus. Normally, about 2,000 people show up for the "Springfest." But last week more than 8,000 arrived, turning the normally quiet Harrisonburg, Va...

Recording Police and Defining 'Plain Sight'

Posted on April 15, 2010
As bicyclist Eli Damon tells the story, a police officer pulled him over on March 20 as he rode his bike in Hadley, Massachusetts. The officer cited him for failing to keep to the right side of the road, and while issuing a ticket for the offense he noticed a camera on Damon's helmet...

When Courts No Longer Consider Email to be Private, What is Left?

Posted on April 06, 2010
A stunningly bad decision came down from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that threatens the right to privacy in email. I want to alert everyone to the confused logic of this decision and point out, once again, that availability of online data provides an irresistible temptation for abuse...

Don't Miss It! CMLP's April 9th Conference

Posted on April 05, 2010
Just a quick reminder that there's still time to register for CMLP's spring conference, which is coming up this Friday, April 9. Entitled "Journalism?s Digital Transition: Unique Legal Challenges and Opportunities," the program will bring together panels of academics, legal practitioners, and journalists...

Right for the Wrong Reasons: DC Court of Appeals Vacates 30-Year Computer Ban

Posted on April 05, 2010
It is hard to know how to feel when a court does the right thing for the wrong reasons. On April 2, in United States v. Russell, the D.C. Court of Appeals vacated an immutable 30-year computer and Internet ban as a condition for the supervised release of a sex offender...

Kansas Shield Law Awaits Governor?s Signature: Ripe Fruit From a Bewildering Tree

Posted on April 01, 2010
In an overwhelming vote of support, the Kansas Legislature Tuesday passed a media shield bill that, if signed by Governor Mark Parkinson (D), will protect reporters in most circumstances from having to disclose the identity of anonymous sources and other information obtained in the newsgathering process...

Keeping 911 Recordings Public and Online

Posted on April 01, 2010
When a grizzly bear mauled bicyclist Petra Davis two years ago in an Anchorage park, she called 911 from her cell phone, barely able to speak: "Please help ... bear," she struggled to say. "I can't talk." A fellow biker quickly came to her rescue, grabbing her cell phone and calling again for help: "I have a young girl here who was mauled by a bear and who is in pretty bad shape," Peter Bassinger told the operator...

British Libel Reform: Finally to Be a Reality?

Posted on March 31, 2010
The reform of British libel law has been something of a will o' the wisp in recent years. Every few months it seems, the issue jumps to the fore, either through international pressure, a judicial decision, or a domestic campaign. But just as quickly, it disappears back into the legal morass...

Paving Hell: ACTA Encourages Oppression from Friend and Foe Alike

Posted on March 30, 2010
The drafting of the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA) isn?t going so well. The agreement, which at least hints at three strikes provisions and third-party criminal liability for IP infringement, was finally leaked in its entirety last week. Now it seems that the drafters are a little nervous that authoritarian regimes might use ACTA to suppress speech...

Using the Internet During Trial: What About Judges?

Posted on March 29, 2010
Over the past year, we've watched the courts struggle with Internet and social media use involving a variety of actors. We've seen jurors doing Internet research and using social media during trial, courtroom observers using portable recording devices, and supporters of a popular defendant bombarding a judge with emails...

Goldsmith and Lessig: ACTA Raises "Serious Constitutional Questions"

Posted on March 26, 2010
Harvard Law School professors Jack Goldsmith and Lawrence Lessig published an opinion piece today in the Washington Post, in which they lay out the serious constitutional concerns surrounding the Obama administration's plan to adopt ACTA as a "sole executive agreement" that requires only the president's approval...

Brazil Fines Google Over Dirty Jokes on Orkut; Brazilian Lawyers Weigh In

Posted on March 25, 2010
Techdirt first drew our attention to Google's recent legal troubles in Brazil over its Orkut social networking site (which, as Mike Masnick says, is?mysteriously?only popular in Brazil). The case has gotten a lot less attention than the whole Italy kerfuffle, perhaps because it lacks the drama of a court holding executives personally accountable...

Candidate Joe Walsh vs. Rocker Joe Walsh: A DMCA Knockout

Posted on March 09, 2010
After a month of snarky letter and email exchanges, Republican U.S. Congressional candidate Joe Walsh recently removed a campaign video from his website that used a song by the Eagles band member also named Joe Walsh. Candidate Walsh called the copyright controversy "a distraction" in late January but vowed that he was "not backing down on this...

Pennsylvania Court Refuses to Unmask News Website Commenters

Posted on March 08, 2010
Thomas O'Toole at TechLaw points us to an anonymous speech decision issued last week by a federal court in Pennsylvania. In McVicker v. King, William McVicker subpoenaed Trib Total Media, publisher of the South Hills Record and YourSouthHills.com, for "information that would disclose the true identities" of the users of seven identified screen names...

Could a National Anti SLAPP Law be on the Horizon?

Posted on March 04, 2010
Congressman Steve Cohen, D-TN is our First Amendment Bad Ass of the week. Mr. Cohen introduced The Citizen Participation Act, a federal anti-slapp bill. The bill describes its purpose as follows: To protect first amendment rights of petition and free speech by preventing States and the United States from allowing meritless lawsuits arising from acts in furtherance of those rights, commonly called ??SLAPPs??, and for other purposes...

CMLP and Cyberlaw Clinic Call On Illinois Supreme Court to Preserve Broad Purpose of Citizen Participation Act

Posted on March 04, 2010
With the help of Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic, CMLP and a coalition of media and advocacy organizations submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Illinois Supreme Court this week, urging the court to reject two lower courts? narrow interpretations of the state?s Anti-SLAPP statute, known as the Citizen Participation Act...

Trial Judges Impose Penalties for Social Media in the Courtroom

Posted on March 03, 2010
As state and federal courts continue to struggle with the use of social media in courtrooms and courthouses, recently state judges in Colorado and Ohio took action against courtroom observers who used social media technology in court. Intimidation by Cell Phone An Ohio judge imposed the more serious penalty against two trial attendees who separately pointed a Flip camera and a cell phone towards to the jury during trial testimony in a murder case...

Will Italy's Conviction of Google Execs Stick?

Posted on March 02, 2010
I've no doubt that CMLP blog readers, fellow netizens that you are, are well aware of an Italian court's conviction last week of three Google executives for invasion of privacy of an Italian teenager. (In case you missed the story, here it is in short: the teenager (who either suffered from Down's syndrome or autism; reports differ) was filmed by four other teens who were bullying him, and the bullies posted the video on YouTube...

Lenz v. Universal Music: Court Limits Damages Recoverable for Bogus Takedowns

Posted on March 02, 2010
Last week, federal district judge Jeremy Fogel issued a technical but important decision in Stephanie Lenz's lawsuit against Universal Music over the "Let's Go Crazy" dancing baby takedown. As Eric Goldman points out, the decision is one of the few (if not the only) to weigh in on what damages are recoverable from a copyright owner who sends a bogus takedown in violation of 17 U...

Why Are Bloggers Still Sitting at the Kids' Table? The Popularity of Online News and the Federal Shield Law

Posted on March 01, 2010
Well, it turns out this whole Internet thing is getting pretty popular. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, more Americans now get their news from the Internet than from old-fashioned newspapers. While this might just mean that consumers are reading mainstream media content online rather than in print, the Pew report also suggests that social media has its own significant role: The rise of the internet as a news platform has been an integral part of these changes...

Philly, Don't Blame Facebook for Missing the Snowball Fight Invite

Posted on February 24, 2010
I understand you're upset, Philadelphia. Plans for a "flash mob" snowball fight last week got out of control. Scores of teenagers stormed a local mall and nearby streets vandalizing stores and beating the hell out of each other. It's embarrassing for you, especially because it's happened before...

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