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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

Juicy No More

Posted on February 06, 2009
You know the economy's bad when even college rumor-mongering isn't making a profit any more. That's right, JuicyCampus.com, the website dedicated to anonymously posted collegiate gossip, has closed up shop. In a post announcing the shutdown, Matt Ivester, the founder and CEO, put the blame on "these historically difficult economic times," in which "online ad revenue has plummeted and venture capital funding has dissolved...

Chicago Developer Shovels Out Subpoenas by the Bucketful Over Wilson Yard Redevelopment

Posted on February 05, 2009
We are still trying to get to the bottom of this one, but it appears that a real estate developer in Chicago has subpoenaed information from four websites that have criticized efforts to redevelop Wilson Yard in downtown Chicago. The redevelopment work is the subject of a lawsuit filed in December 2008 by community group Fix Wilson Yard against Peter Holsten's development company and the City of Chicago...

CMLP Seeking Law Student Interns

Posted on February 05, 2009
Are you a law student interested in working on challenging legal issues relating to online speech and non-traditional journalism? Are you looking for media and cyberlaw experience? Do you want to get involved with the Berkman Center community? The Citizen Media Law Project is seeking paid interns for part-time work during the the spring semester and for full-time work over the summer...

Live-blogging journalism? You betcha. It's just not always good journalism.

Posted on February 04, 2009
As a young journalist, I remember listening with interest to colleagues recounting long-ago fights for the right to bring cameras into the court room. And while that battle hasn't been won everywhere, it appears nevertheless to be giving way to a new wave of concerns...

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Live Blogging in the Courtroom, Is It Journalism?

Posted on February 03, 2009
One of the recurring themes I've discovered in my reading assignments for law school is that judges are, by and large, not technologically savvy. Far from it, in fact. Thus, it was of great interest to me to find an ABA Journal article about U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett, who recently allowed a journalist for the Cedar Rapids Gazette to blog live during the a tax fraud trial in his Sioux City, Iowa, court...

Progress Illinois' YouTube Channel Reinstated After Fox Declines to Sue

Posted on February 02, 2009
Late last week, YouTube reinstated Progress Illinois' YouTube channel after Fox Television declined to sue for copyright infringement within the 10 day window prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). As we noted in a previous post, the dispute began back in November 2008, when Fox sent a letter to YouTube demanding the takedown of a video, Beavers On Back-Door Pay Raises, that Progress Illinois, an online news site focused on progressive issues, had uploaded to YouTube and embedded in a blog post examining how some Cook County commissioners were using their expense accounts for personal gain...

California Anti-SLAPP Project Takes Up Case for Yelp and Parents Sued Over Negative Dentist Review

Posted on February 01, 2009
On January 21, the California Anti-SLAPP Project (CASP) filed a special motion to strike the complaint of Yvonne Wong, a pediatric dentist who sued Yelp! Inc. and two parents based on a negative review of her services the parents posted on Yelp. Dr...

Virginia Blogger Targeted With Outrageous Subpoena

Posted on January 30, 2009
In perhaps the most blatant misuse of the subpoena power we've seen since the subpoena served on Kathleen Seidel of Neurodiversity last March, a lawyer for Thomas Garrett of Virginia has served a patently overbroad subpoena on blogger Waldo Jaquith, who publishes cvillenews...

Breaking News: Virgin America Sues Blog Over Parody Ad

Posted on January 29, 2009
Earlier this week, California-based airline Virgin America filed a six-count complaint against the publisher and editors of Adrants, a blog focused on the advertising industry, after it published a post that was paired with a fake ad containing the Virgin logo and the statement, "The Hudson Crash: Just One More Reason to Fly Virgin...

Another Victory for the "Douchebags"

Posted on January 29, 2009
A federal district court in Connecticut has granted qualified immunity to the high school principal and the school district superintendent who punished a student for calling school administrators "douchebags" on her blog. Doninger v. Niehoff, No...

Thoughts on the Value of Journalism in the Wake of GateHouse v. New York Times Settlement

Posted on January 28, 2009
The fallout from the GateHouse v. New York Times settlement, anticlimactic as it was, has been fascinating, and deliciously exhaustive in the way that only Internet-based discussions of Internet-related issues can be. But in rereading a large sample of those discussions, I came away with two questions that are still bouncing around inside my own head...

Introducing Guest Blogger Michael Lindenberger

Posted on January 28, 2009
I'm excited to welcome Michael A. Lindenberger, a veteran news reporter, as a guest blogger. Michael writes about the policy and politics of transportation for The Dallas Morning News and about national legal affairs for TIME.com. He also teaches Mass Communication Law to journalism majors at the University of North Texas...

Judge Orders Google to Notify "Skanks in NYC" Blogger of Discovery Request

Posted on January 27, 2009
Wendy Davis of MediaPost reports that the blogger behind the Skanks in NYC blog will keep his/her identity secret for another four weeks. In a hearing yesterday in New York Supreme Court, Judge Joan Madden refused to rule on model Liskula Cohen's request for discovery from Google regarding the blogger's identity until after Google notified the blogger, providing him/her an opportunity to object...

GateHouse Media v. New York Times Settles

Posted on January 26, 2009
Zach Seward, assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab, reports that the parties in GateHouse Media v. New York Times Company have settled. The case was scheduled to go to trial today in United States District Court in Boston. Zach, who has been filing Twitter updates from the courthouse, is reporting that a Court officer told him the case settled over the weekend...

Dixie Chicks Face Defamation Lawsuit After Using Court Records

Posted on January 22, 2009
The defamation lawsuit against Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines and her band mates over an open letter published on the band's website has recently garnered the attention of legal bloggers (On.Point, THR, Esq.), who are asking whether Maines and her co-defendants can assert the fair report privilege as an affirmative defense despite their not being members of the traditional media...

Obama Moves Quickly to Increase Government Transparency

Posted on January 22, 2009
Well, that was quick. Just a day into his new administration, President Obama issued a pair of memos and an executive order all aimed at increasing government openness. The Washington Post reports: Obama reversed George W. Bush's restrictions on access to records of former presidents...

Kentucky Court of Appeals Rules in Gambling Domains Case

Posted on January 21, 2009
The Kentucky Court of appeals has ruled that the Commonwealth can not seize 141 domain names due to their alleged affiliation with online gambling. The Commonwealth initially filed an in rem (against the item, not against a person) action against the domain names -- seeking to seize the domains as "gambling devices...

Judge Gertner Postpones Webcast of Hearing in P2P File Sharing Case

Posted on January 21, 2009
United States District Court Judge Nancy Gertner has postponed what would have been the first live webcast of a federal court hearing scheduled for tomorrow in order to give the plaintiffs in the case an opportunity to seek appellate review of her decision allowing video cameras into her Boston courtroom...

WhiteHouse.gov: Glimmerings of a New Transparency

Posted on January 20, 2009
Jason Kottke notes the new robots.txt file at whitehouse.gov ? down to a single ?disallow? from more than 2,400 yesterday. (Cross-posted from the Center for Citizen Media Blog.)

New York Times Calls on Inauguration Attendees to Submit Their Photos

Posted on January 19, 2009
In much the same spirit as its Polling Place Photo Project, the New York Times is calling on attendees of this week's inaugural events to submit their photos for publication: NYTimes.com wants to publish your photos related to the inauguration of President-elect Obama, from the preparations through the main event and after-parties...

South Carolina Legislator Seeks to Criminalize Profanity in Public

Posted on January 16, 2009
South Carolina state senator Robert Ford has proposed a bill that would make it a felony for a person in a public forum or place of public accommodation wilfully and knowingly to publish orally or in writing, exhibit, or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature...

One Yelp Review Case Settles as a Second Gets Underway in California

Posted on January 15, 2009
We may be seeing the start of a trend in California, as one lawsuit regarding a review posted on the website Yelp.com settled last week just as a second case got underway. San Francisco-based chiropractor Steven Biegel and his former patient, Christopher Norberg, have reportedly settled a lawsuit relating to a critical review that Norberg posted on Yelp...

Anonymous Gripe Site Wins Legal Battle With Ohio Homebuilder Powermark Homes

Posted on January 15, 2009
Last month, an anonymous website dedicated to criticizing Ohio homebuilder Powermark Homes succeeded in maintaining its anonymity in the face of a lawsuit brought by the company and two of its principals, Mark and Lisa Powers, who had sued the anonymous operator of Powermark Homes Alert...

Federal Judge in Boston Orders Groundbreaking Webcast of Hearing

Posted on January 14, 2009
United States District Court Judge Nancy Gertner agreed today to allow video cameras into her Boston courtroom to provide live Internet coverage of a hearing next Thursday in the lawsuit against Boston University graduate student Joel Tenenbaum, who allegedly downloaded seven songs illegally over a peer-to-peer network...

The Unspoken Peril for "Citizen Journalists" Surprise! You Owe the IRS Some Gift Tax!

Posted on January 14, 2009
StinkyJournalism.org: The Unspoken Peril for "Citizen Journalists" Surprise! You Owe the IRS Some Gift Tax! Is the ?donation? of a citizen?s content (video, articles, commentaries, images) to for-profit media outlets that exceeds a fair market value of $12,000 in any single year subject to gift tax? Judging from the IRS guidelines, the answer is ?yes...

CMLP Publishes Guide to Covering the 2009 Presidential Inauguration

Posted on January 13, 2009
Heading to Washington, D.C., to attend the Presidential Inauguration? You're bringing your camera with you, right? Well it shouldn't come as any surprise that heightened security measures across the Washington area will affect where you can go, what you can bring with you, and what you can do to document the inaugural events...

Lessig and Colbert Mix It Up Over Remix Culture

Posted on January 12, 2009
Last Thursday, cyberlaw luminary and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig appeared on the Colbert Report to discuss his new book Remix. There are some great exchanges as Colbert baits Lessig with exaggerated pro-copyright views and Lessig holds his own with varying degrees of success...

Subscribe to the Citizen Media Law Brief

Posted on January 09, 2009
Looking to catch up on the latest legal happenings in the world of online and citizen media? Or perhaps you just need something to fill your dreary Friday afternoons? Now is the time to subscribe to the Citizen Media Law Project's weekly newsletter, the Citizen Media Law Brief...

Anonymity of 'Skanks in NYC' Blogger Could Hinge On Fact-Opinion Divide

Posted on January 08, 2009
Since the story broke in the New York Daily News on Tuesday, there has been a deluge of articles and posts (for example here, here, here, and here) on supermodel Liskula Cohen and her quest for a court order requiring Google/Blogger.com to reveal the identity of the anonymous publisher of the Skanks in NYC blog...

Web Security Standard Compromised by Security Researchers Using Sony PlayStations

Posted on January 07, 2009
The following post was submitted by one our loyal readers, Theo Karantalis. MIAMI -- The familiar closed padlock icon that indicates a Web site is secure has been picked. A Web security standard compromised by security researchers exposed a weak link in the system that could give hackers access to PCs...

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