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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

Lori Drew Indicted For Misuse of MySpace in Megan Meier Suicide Case

Posted on May 16, 2008
Lori Drew was indicted on Thursday for her alleged role in a hoax on MySpace directed at Megan Meier, a 13-year-old neighbor of Drew's who committed suicide in October 2006 after a "boy" she met on MySpace abruptly turned on her and ended their relationship...

Case Testing Illinois' New Anti-SLAPP Law Settles Before Court Can Clarify Reach of Citizen Participation Act

Posted on May 15, 2008
In what would have been the first case to test Illinois' newly enacted Citizen Participation Act, which provides immunity for speech related to certain matters of government and public concern, the parties settled before a court could interpret this important addition to the growing list of state anti-SLAPP laws...

Berkman@10 Conference

Posted on May 15, 2008
We are all at the Berkman@10 Conference at Harvard Law School today and tomorrow, so postings will be a bit light. The conference, subtitled "The Future of the Internet" (based on Jonathan Zittrain's engaging new book of the same title), includes a number of Internet luminaries such as Jimmy Wales, Esther Dyson, Joshua Micah Marshall, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Michael Fricklas, and Reed Hundt...

Update on Oregon Statutes Copyright Spat

Posted on May 14, 2008
Ars Technica reminds us that the copyright squabble between the Legislative Counsel Committee of the State of Oregon (the "Committee") and Justia and Public.Resource.Org is still going on, and it may erupt into a full-on legal battle soon. That would be fine, in my view, because we could use a strong court decision putting to rest the argument that the "arrangement and display" of state statutes are copyrightable...

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Evans v. Evans: Appellate Court Throws Out Prior Restraint

Posted on May 13, 2008
Yesterday, a California appellate court struck down a brazenly unconstitutional preliminary injunction prohibiting two defendants from making "false and defamatory statements" about, or publishing the "confidential personal information" of, Thomas Evans, a deputy sheriff in San Diego...

Highlights from the Legal Guide: An Overview of Copyright

Posted on May 09, 2008
This is the ninth in a series of posts calling attention to topics we cover in the Citizen Media Legal Guide. In this post, we highlight the section on copyright, which provides an overview of this important area of law and offers practical advice to citizen media creators on how to use the copyrighted works of others and protect their own work from exploitation...

Copyright and the Demise of Newspapers

Posted on May 08, 2008
Neil Netanel, a highly regarded legal scholar, has an interesting post on Balkinization entitled "The Demise of Newspapers: Economics, Copyright, Free Speech." Netanel, who has written extensively on copyright issues, posits that part of the reason for the decline in newspapers stems from Internet competitors that build on the content and value that newspapers create...

Crazy Legal Battle Between Newspapers Settles, But Leaves Worrisome Fair Use Decision Intact

Posted on May 07, 2008
Many readers are probably familiar with the meltdown of the Santa Barbara News-Press, a local daily newspaper in Santa Barbara, California. Starting in 2006, reporters and editors of the newspaper clashed with now-infamous Wendy McCaw, controlling shareholder of Ampersand Publishing LLC, which owns the paper...

CMLP Talk Today at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Posted on May 06, 2008
We will be giving a talk today at the Berkman Center at 12:30pm about the Citizen Media Law Project. We'll discuss the project?s accomplishments over its first year, including the creation of a legal guide for citizen media creators, the development of a database of legal threats directed at online expression, and recent litigation efforts on behalf of Wikileaks...

Proposed Reform of Massachusetts Open Meetings Law Disappoints

Posted on May 05, 2008
This weekend, the Boston Globe published a thoughtful op-ed by Robert Ambrogi on efforts to reform the Massachusetts open meetings law. Ambrogi points out that the current open meetings law does not provide for civil or criminal penalties against government officials who violate the law...

CMLP Launches New Legal Guide Section on Intellectual Property

Posted on May 02, 2008
Back in January, we began rolling out the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Guide. So far, we've published major sections of the guide covering Forming a Business and Getting Online, Dealing with Online Legal Risks, Newsgathering and Privacy, and Access to Government Information...

Hawaii Legislature Passes Shield Bill

Posted on May 01, 2008
The Hawaii legislature passed a reporters' shield bill Tuesday that will protect both traditional and non-traditional journalists from compelled disclosure of their confidential sources and information and materials obtained or prepared during the newsgathering process...

English Libel Law's Pernicious Impact on First Amendment Speech

Posted on April 30, 2008
Floyd Abrams published an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal that highlights the impact of foreign law, especially English libel law, on speech in the United States. Abrams notes: English libel law has come to have a disturbing impact on the right of Americans to speak out...

Highlights from the Legal Guide: Access to Courts and Court Records

Posted on April 29, 2008
This is the eighth in a series of posts calling attention to topics we cover in the Citizen Media Legal Guide. In this post, we highlight the section on Access to Courts and Court Records, which provides an overview of federal and state laws that grant you the right to access federal and state court records and court proceedings...

Saudi Blogger Fouad Ahmad Al-Farhan Released

Posted on April 28, 2008
After four months, the Saudi Arabian government has released popular Saudi blogger Fouad Ahmad Al-Farhan without charge. Authorities arrested Fouad in December after warning him about posts supporting an activist group on his blog at ???? ???? ???????...

Eclipse Aviation Uses Subpoena to Uncover Identities of Anonymous Critics

Posted on April 25, 2008
Eclipse Aviation, a manufacturer of "affordable" jets, recently sent a subpoena to Google seeking to uncover the identities of 28 users who posted on Eclipse Aviation Critic NG, a blog that Google hosts on its Blogger service. The subpoena, which includes a colorful list of pseudonyms such as "Turn-and-Burn," "Bill E...

How Trademark Law Casts A Dark Cloud Over Free Speech

Posted on April 24, 2008
Bill McGeveran, a University of Minnesota law professor and friend of the CMLP, has published his article, "Four Free Speech Goals for Trademark Law" in the Media & Entertainment Law Journal, volume 18 (available at SSRN). The article makes a compelling case that, while courts in trademark cases ultimately tend to reach results that protect free speech against trademark overreaching, they do so in a muddled way that makes it hard to resolve cases quickly and cheaply and leaves speakers vulnerable to bullying through cease-and-desist letters...

Judge Quashes Subpoena to Blogger Kathleen Seidel, Orders Lawyer to Explain Justification for Subpoena

Posted on April 23, 2008
A federal magistrate judge in New Hampshire has quashed the subpoena issued to Kathleen Seidel. Seidel publishes the blog Neurodiversity, where she writes about autism issues. In February 2008, she wrote about a lawsuit against various vaccine manufacturers, Sykes v...

Check Out The SPJ Citizen Journalism Academy

Posted on April 21, 2008
The Society for Professional Journalists is hosting a series of one-day "Citizen Journalism Academy" workshops in Chicago (May 17), Greensboro, North Carolina (June 7), and Los Angeles (June 28). The idea is to provide training and information for citizen media creators on topics ranging from media ethics, to standard journalistic practices, to law...

Oregon Claims Copyright in Its Statutes -- Well, Sort Of

Posted on April 17, 2008
Just last week, I was ruminating on the viability of state claims of copyright in government records. At the time, I was pretty confident that a state wouldn't be crazy enough to claim copyright in its own statutes, both because caselaw suggests this would be legally invalid and because it would be shoddy public policy...

The Smoking Gun Does the Dirty Work, Finds the Gems Others Miss

Posted on April 16, 2008
The New York Times just ran a fascinating article on The Smoking Gun, a website dedicated to providing "documents--cool, confidential, quirky--that can't be found elsewhere on the Web." The three-person investigative shop in mid-town Manhattan consistently finds -- and publishes -- court documents, government records, and other esoterica that it finds through Freedom of Information requests, court files, and good old-fashioned investigative journalism...

Church of Scientology Threatens Wikileaks Over Publication of Church "Bibles"

Posted on April 15, 2008
Wikileaks, which purports to provide an "uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis," is back in the news as it faces a new legal threat from the Church of Scientology. On March 26, Wikileaks published what it describes as a full unedited version of the Church of Scientology's Operating Thetan documents...

Rowling v. RDR Books: Harry Potter Lexicon Trial Starts Today

Posted on April 14, 2008
The trial in Rowling v. RDR Books starts today in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The New York Times reports that Rowling herself will take the witness stand. At issue, of course, is whether Steven Vander Ark's print version of the Harry Potter Lexicon website infringes Rowling's copyrights in her enormously popular books...

Blogger Kathleen Seidel Fights Subpoena Seeking Information About Vaccine Litigation

Posted on April 11, 2008
We've been following the subpoena issued to Kathleen Seidel in the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Threats Database, but thought it was time to throw our support behind Seidel and post about this egregious attempt to chill online speech. Seidel publishes the blog Neurodiversity, where she writes about autism issues...

Perez Hilton Sues Fellow Gossip-Blogger For Defamation Over Alleged Sex Tapes

Posted on April 10, 2008
Earlier this week, Perez Hilton sued fellow gossip-blogger Jonathan Jaxson for libel, slander, invasion of privacy, harassment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Jaxson, the former publicist for the Backstreet Boys whose real name is Jonathan Wayne Lewandowski, operates a blog called JJ's Dirt that feeds the public's apparently unlimited hunger for celebrity gossip...

Internet Solutions v. Marshall: Internet Defamation Case Dismissed for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction

Posted on April 09, 2008
A quick update on the Internet Solutions v. Marshall case, which I've blogged about at length previously. This case is significant to us because Tabatha Marshall, the defendant, was the first user of our website to submit information about her case through our threat entry form...

What Were They Thinking?

Posted on April 08, 2008
As reported by the Trademark Blog, Woody Allen is suing American Apparel for misappropriation of his name and likeness. Admittedly, it's not the heartland of citizen media, but it is a simple lesson on exactly what not to do with celebrity images...

B.C. Government Claims Copyright in FOI Records

Posted on April 08, 2008
Michael Geist points the way to an interesting Vancouver Sun article, reporting on the B.C. provincial government's inclusion of copyright notices in packets of documents turned over to journalists under B.C.'s Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act, a Canadian analog of our state FOI laws...

Roommates.com - Just How Big A Hole Did the Ninth Circuit Poke in CDA 230?

Posted on April 04, 2008
By now you've heard that the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, reaffirmed the previous Roommates.com decision. There's lots of excellent coverage out there -- some notable examples include the Online Liability Blog, Info/Law, Internet Cases, and Eric Goldman's Law & Technology Blog...

T-Mobile Asks Engadget to Stop Using the Color Magenta

Posted on April 03, 2008
I was sure that this was an April Fool's joke. But alas, it's true. Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile, sent Engadget a letter a few weeks ago, requesting that the popular tech blog stop using the color magenta in the logo for its Engadget Mobile news blog...

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