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Media Law Prof Blog 

Media law resources, information, and news for the academic community.
Post Frequency: 34.8/day Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 12:48:00 Recent Entries: 2853
Go to Media Law Prof Blog, find other Media & Entertainment Law blogs, or browse all law blogs.
J. D. Salinger Files Suit Over "Sequel" To Catcher in the Rye
Posted on June 02, 2009The notoriously reclusive J. D. Salinger has filed a lawsuit over the book 60 Years Later, which is listed as "pre-pub" by Amazon.com, and has as its author the pseudonymous "J.D. California." 60 Years Later, published by Nicotext, is described...
Iraqi Journalist Killed In Mosul
Posted on June 01, 2009Sports reporter Alaa Abdul-Wahab has died in a bomb attack in Mosul. He worked for the Baghdadiya TV station, based in Cairo. Sources report that a bomb was attached to his vehicle. Two other reporters were wounded. In another incident...
Wikipedia Blocks Church of Scientology Addresses To Prevent Editing
Posted on June 01, 2009Wikipedia has banned some editors apparently associated with the Church of Scientology and all IP addressed associated with the Church from editing Church entries in an attempt to end an on-going dispute over portrayals of the Church in the online...
Comparative Intellectual Property Law: Indonesia
Posted on June 01, 2009Simon Butt, University of Sydney Faculty of Law, has published "Intellectual Property in Indonesia: A Problematic Legal Transplant," in Indonesia: Law and Society (T. Lindsey ed.; Federation Press, 2008). Here is the abstract. Since the mid 1990s, Indonesia has significantly...
Texas Passes Shield Law; It's Already In Use
Posted on May 29, 2009Texas' new shield law has already been put to use: a judge quashed a subpoena issued to KIII reporter Katy Kiser using the Free Flow of Information Act this week. Read more here.
Spector Gets 19 Years To Life
Posted on May 29, 2009A judge has sentenced music producer Phil Spector to a term of 19 years to life for the murder of Lana Clarkson and told him he must serve a minimum of 19 years before being eligible for parole.
U. S. District Court For the Western District of Kentucky Holds That Single Publication Rule Applies To Internet In Defamation Cases
Posted on May 29, 2009The U. S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky has ruled that the single publication rule applies to the Internet. The plaintiff claimed that he had been defamed per se on the defendant's website. The defendant claimed that...
Craigslist CEO: We're At Center of "Witchhunt"
Posted on May 29, 2009Craigslist head Jim Buckmaster says his company is enduring a "witchhunt" over the erotic ads it has accepted over the past few years. He notes in particular the actions of South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, against whom Craigslist was...
David Souter and Academic Freedom
Posted on May 29, 2009For the Chronicle of Higher Education, Steve Sanders writes that we may find that one of the greatest losses academics sustain now that Justice Souter is leaving the bench is one that is not immediately obvious: his devotion to academic...
New York City's Film Tax Credit Legislation May Be Revamped
Posted on May 28, 2009New York City is rethinking and re-introducing its film tax credit legislation. Maximum tax credits would drop from five to four percent, run through 2011, and cap at a quarter of a million dollars. Television shows could get the four...
Daily Mail Issues Apology, Pays Damages, Over Story About Preferring Adoption and Careers To Natural Childbirth
Posted on May 28, 2009The Daily Mail has apologized to four woman and paid out 10,000 pounds in damages to three of them after running a story that suggested that they valued their careers and figures more than having biological children, and thus chose...
Photo Agency, Online Service, Apologize For Inclusion of Photo of Disaster As Potential Jigsaw Puzzle
Posted on May 28, 2009A photo agency has apologized after an image of a fire in which more than 50 people died in 1985 was included by an online service as a potential photo for use as a jigsaw puzzle. PA Photos included the...
Science, the Brain, and the First Amendment
Posted on May 27, 2009Interesting post by Marc Blitz over at Neuroscience and Law Blog on the subject of "low value speech" and the assumptions that scholars make about it, particularly with regard to its effect on mental images. Says Professor Blitz, "Can we...
German Court Lifts Ban On Film
Posted on May 27, 2009A film starring Keri Russell may be shown in Germany after a court ruled that screening it would not infringe the rights of convicted killer Armin Meiwes, whose actions inspired the movie. Another court banned Grimm Love (German title Rohtenberg),...
D (Digital) Day
Posted on May 27, 2009Switchover day is nearly here (again), but this time it seems as though nearly everybody is ready. Nearly 3 percent of U.S. households may be in the dark when stations go from analog to digital signals, but can they say...
Banning Lawyer Advertising
Posted on May 27, 2009Nat Stern, Florida State University College of Law, has published Commercial Speech, 'Irrational' Clients, and the Persistence of Bans on Subjective Lawyer Advertising, forthcoming in the Brigham Young University Law Review. Here is the abstract. Notwithstanding a string of defeats...
Contemporary Understanding Of the Fourteenth Amendment
Posted on May 27, 2009George C. Thomas III, Rutgers University, Newark, has published Newspapers and the Fourteenth Amendment: What Did the American Public Know About Section 1? in Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues, volume 18 (2009). Here is the abstract. For over sixty years...
The Viacom v. YouTube Litigation
Posted on May 26, 2009Candidus Dougherty, Rutgers School of Law, Camden, has published Viacom International, Inc., et al v. YouTube, Inc., et al. in volume 8 of E-Commerce Law Reports (March 2009). Here is the abstract. On March 13, 2007, Viacom International, Inc. and...
Some of S. C. Nominee's Opinions
Posted on May 26, 2009For a partial list of Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor's opinions, see http://documents.nytimes.com/selected-cases-of-judge-sonia-sotomayor#p=1
Keeping Defamation Suits At Home
Posted on May 26, 2009A New York Times editorial in support of anti-libel tourism legislation.
Daily Telegraph Removes Tory MP's Blog
Posted on May 26, 2009The Daily Telegraph is no longer allowing Tory politican Nadine Dorries to blog on its site, after she accused the paper's owners of improper motives in allowing reporters to pursue further investigations concerning MP expenses. She accused the paper of...
Buckingham Palace Chauffeur Allows Reporters Access To Palace Despite Security Guidelines
Posted on May 25, 2009Various media, including the BBC and ABC News, are reporting that a chauffeur who works for Buckingham Palace, is on suspension after he allowed two journalists from the tabloid News of the World to get access to the building, and...
Legal and Social Issues of Wifi Roaming
Posted on May 25, 2009Romain Robert, Mark Manulis, Florence De Villenfagne, CRID, Damien Leroy, Julien Jost, FUNDP, University de Namur, Francois Koeune, Catholic University of Louvain, Caroline Ker, Jean-Marc Dinant, FUNDP, University of Namur, Yves Poullet, CRID, Olivier Bonaventure, and Jean-Jacques Quisquater, Catholic University...
Fundamental Rights in Virtual Communities
Posted on May 25, 2009Nic Suzor, QUT School of Law, has published On the (Partially-)Inalienable Rights of Participants in Virtual Communities at 130 Media International Austrlia 90. Here is the abstract. As virtual communities become more central to the everyday activities of connected individuals,...
A Famous Cartoon
Posted on May 25, 2009The New York Times notes that on May 25, 1872, Harper's Weekly published a cartoon parodying three New York state judges--Albert Cardozo (father of Benjamin), John McCunn, and George Barnard--for providing the Tweed Ring and Tammany Hall with helpful decisions...
More On Craigslist's Ads
Posted on May 24, 2009The litigation over craigslist's "erotic ads" section is heating up. Even though the site reached an agreement with 40 states attorneys general last year, and has modified its practices since the arrest of a Boston man in the murder of...
Does International Law Apply in Cyberspace?
Posted on May 22, 2009Scott Shackelford, University of Cambridge Department of Politics and International Studies, and Stanford Law School, has published From Nuclear War to Net War: Analogizing Cyber Attacks in International Law, in volume 25 of Berkeley Journal of International Law (2009)...
The Digital Rights Management Debate
Posted on May 22, 2009Bill D. Herman has presented a dissertation, The Battle Over Digital Rights Management: A Multi-Method Study of the Politics of Copyright Management Technologies, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD in the Department of Film and Media Studies,...
Why Protect Lies?
Posted on May 21, 2009Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, University of Florida College of Law, has published Where's the Harm?: Free Speech and the Regulation of Lies, at 65 Washington and Lee Law Review 1091 (2008). Here is the abstract. Why does the First Amendment accord...
A New Look at the History of the Evolution of the Right of Privacy
Posted on May 21, 2009Neil M. Richards, Washington University School of Law, reviews Lawrence Friedman's Guarding Life's Dark Secrets: Legal and Social Controls Over Reputation, Propriety, and Privacy (2007) for the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities (volume 21 (2009))...
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If a person defames me and threatens me to pay a bill that they made and it is posted to others besides myself, can I sue ?
The documentation of your actions in this case pretty much preclude any legal ac...
Is it libel to write blog posts and/or online reviews about a local business that defames one's reputation?
Libel is the form of defamation expressed in fixed-- usually written form. Sland...
Is it illegal to resell dvds/cds?
Nope, it is not illegal, assuming you are in the U.S.; there is a "first sa...
How can I make my blog more popular?
You have to write and submit articles, with backlinks to your blogsite....

If a person defames me and threatens me to pay a bill that they made and it is posted to others besides myself, can I sue ?
The documentation of your actions in this case pretty much preclude any legal ac...
Is it libel to write blog posts and/or online reviews about a local business that defames one's reputation?
Libel is the form of defamation expressed in fixed-- usually written form. Sland...
Is it illegal to resell dvds/cds?
Nope, it is not illegal, assuming you are in the U.S.; there is a "first sa...
How can I make my blog more popular?
You have to write and submit articles, with backlinks to your blogsite....








