Media & Entertainment Law

Podcast: Ike's Impact on Texas Lawyers

Posted on September 24, 2008
When Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast, lawyers were not spared. Many lawyers were hard hit in both their profesisonal and personal lives. On this week's episode of the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, my cohost J. Craig Williams and I interview Bill Livesay, executive director of Andrews Kurth LLP in Houston, and Miriam Rozen, staff reporter for Texas Lawyer newspaper...

Nantucket Ordered to Release Records

Posted on September 23, 2008
Acting on an appeal by the Inquirer and Mirror newspaper, the Massachusetts Division of Public Records has ordered Nantucket officials to release a confidential settlement agreement entered into with a former town employee, the Inquirer and Mirror reports today...

New Complaint Filed on Open Meeting Law

Posted on September 23, 2008
From today's Worcester Telegram & Gazette: "The Telegram & Gazette yesterday filed a violation of the Open Meeting Law complaint with Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr.?s office regarding a Sept. 8 Water-Sewer Commission meeting that was not posted...

Northeastern Launches First Amendment Center

Posted on September 23, 2008
Northeastern University and the New England First Amendment Coalition have teamed up to launch the New England First Amendment Center, a project designed to focus public attention on access to public records and meetings. From Friday's announcement:The First Amendment Center will continuously update its website with news about public access and First Amendment issues from across New England and around the nation...

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Bloggers Offered Insurance, Legal Training

Posted on September 22, 2008
The Media Bloggers Association is spearheading a project to provide bloggers with first-of-its-kind liability insurance as well as free online training in media law. I have full details in a post today at Law.com's Legal Blog Watch.

Judges/Journalists Workshop Tomorrow

Posted on September 18, 2008
I will be speaking tomorrow at the New England regional Judges/Journalists Workshop in Portsmouth, N.H., sponsored by the National Center for Courts and Media.

Boston Flips Open Government on it Face

Posted on September 11, 2008
How does that saying go about the devil reading the Bible to his own ends? That was all I could think of as I read a report arguing that the First Amendment gives Boston city councilors the right to conduct the people's business behind closed doors. I first heard about it through a story in the Boston Herald (Secret society: City Council mulls end to open meetings) and then obtained a copy through a post to a listserv...

Podcast: MBTA v. Anderson

Posted on August 29, 2008
It all started when three MIT students put together a presentation for their network security class at MIT about their findings regarding the security vulnerabilities of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's CharlieCard fare-pass system. Just as the students were about to present their findings at DEFCON, the MBTA went to federal court and won a gag order preventing them from speaking...

Looking for Lawyer2Lawyer Listeners

Posted on August 19, 2008
Are you a listener to our legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer? If so, we'd like to have you as a guest on a special program to mark our third anniversary later this month. We know you're out there -- our podcast last month had more than 40,000 downloads...

Podcast: Legendary Lawyer Gerry Spence

Posted on August 14, 2008
Legendary trial lawyer Gerry Spence is our special guest this week on the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer. Spence came to national prominence for handling the Karen Silkwood case and was most recently in the news for winning an acquittal for Michigan lawyer Geoffrey Fieger...

Mass. Shield Bill Fizzles in Legislature

Posted on July 30, 2008
Yesterday, The Patriot Ledger carried a story on the apparent death of a reporters' shield bill in Massachusetts."The effort to pass a shield law in Massachusetts offering protections to journalists and their anonymous sources was declared dead by its supporters on Monday...

Boston Approves New Newsrack Ordinance

Posted on July 30, 2008
The Boston City Council today voted to approve a significant overhaul of the city's ordinance governing the placement of newsracks. The most significant change is in the fees newspapers must pay. Under the prior ordinance, newspapers paid a one-time registration fee of $150...

My Column Wins National Press Award

Posted on July 27, 2008
Indulge me as I blow my own horn. The American Society of Business Publication Editors this week awarded me its national silver award for best contributed column in a publication with a circulation under 80,000. I received the award for the "Web Watch" column I write for the magazine Law Technology News, an ALM publication...

Podcast: Viacom v. YouTube v. Privacy

Posted on July 25, 2008
A $1 billion lawsuit by Viacom accuses Google's video-sharing Web site, YouTube, of violating its copyrights. Last week, Google and Viacom reached an agreement to allow Google to mask user information from records before handing them over to Viacom. On this week's legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, my co-host J...

Judge Backs Schools in Open Meeting Case

Posted on July 24, 2008
The MetroWest Daily News reports that a Massachusetts Superior Court judge has ruled for the Wayland School Committee in an open meeting law case challenging the discussion in executive session of the school superintendent:"A Middlesex Superior Court judge has ruled the Wayland School Committee did not violate the state's Open Meeting Law in 2004 by discussing Superintendent Gary Burton's evaluation in executive session...

Revised Guide to Mass. Court Records

Posted on July 24, 2008
The District Court Department of the Massachusetts courts has issued a revised version of its Guide to Public Access, Sealing & Expungement of District Court Records. The blog Massachusetts Law Updates says of it: "This is a publication we have long loved in the law libraries for its clarity in explaining which court records are available to the public and which are not...

Podcast: Zittrain on the Future of the Internet

Posted on July 17, 2008
Unless something is done to change its course, the future of the Internet, as Jonathan Zittrain sees it, is one of far less innovation and far more -- and far more ominous -- control. Zittrain, who just became a tenured professor at Harvard Law School, discusses his book, The Future of the Internet ? And How to Stop It, on this week's episode of the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer...

Podcast: Judge Gertner on Blogging, Speech

Posted on July 10, 2008
U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner, who attracted the attention of bloggers and the news media earlier this year when she joined the roster of contributors to the new Slate legal blog, Convictions, shares her thoughts on judicial blogging and judicial speech in this week's episode of our legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer...

Boston Proposes Hike in Newsrack Fees

Posted on July 10, 2008
I testified Monday at a Boston City Council hearing on an proposed overhaul to Boston's newsrack ordinance. Jessica Heslam at the Boston Herald covered the hearing and has this report: Menino pushes plan to hike fees for city?s news boxes. It was also picked up by Editor & Publisher.

Reporters Won?t be Called in Boston Case

Posted on May 29, 2008
The judge presiding over a Massachusetts murder trial ruled yesterday that that two reporters will not be forced to testify about how they obtained a suicide note written by the defendant in jail while awaiting trial. David E. Frank has the news at the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly blog The Docket.

Op-ed on open meetings bill

Posted on May 03, 2008
The Boston Globe today published an op-ed I wrote on current efforts to reform the Massachusetts open meeting law: Open the doors to public meetings.

Podcast: Polygamy and the Law

Posted on April 27, 2008
The raid of a polygamist compound in West Texas has raised difficult and troubling issues concerning the interplay between the state, religion and the rights of children, women and families. This week on the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, I discuss the events in Texas with two guests: Betsy Branch, a family-law attorney with the Dallas firm of McCurley, Orsinger, McCurley, Nelson & Downing, who serves as attorney ad litem for several children in the West Texas case, and lawyer and social critic Wendy Kaminer, who has written about the civil liberties aspects of the case at the blogthefreeforall...

Text of Open Meeting Bill

Posted on April 18, 2008
The open meeting bill (H 3171) reported yesterday by the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight would overhaul the law by centralizing oversight and enforcement in the attorney general's office. Since the text of this most recent version does not yet appear on the legislature's Web site, I am posting it here in its entirety...

Open Meeting Bill Lacks Teeth

Posted on April 18, 2008
A bill to overhaul the Massachusetts open meeting law was reported favorably out of committee yesterday. While there is a lot to like about the bill, it is disappointing for its failure to address the most significant weakness in the law -- its lack of teeth...

Podcast: The Case for the Federal Shield Law

Posted on April 18, 2008
John McCain's endorsement this week of a federal shield law for journalists has given renewed momentum to the Free Flow of Information Act pending in Congress (S 2035). At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice has renewed its offensive against the bill with the launch of a special section of its Web site devoted to its opposition and an op-ed in USA Today by Attorney General Michael B...

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Defamation Case Dismissed

Posted on March 24, 2008
A federal appeals court has dismissed the defamation lawsuit brought by a U.S. military veteran of Iraq against filmmaker Michael Moore over his depiction in the 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. In Damon v. Moore, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that former Army Reserves Sgt...

Libel Suit Tossed Against Local News Site

Posted on March 20, 2008
A Vermont judge has dismissed the libel lawsuit filed against Chris Grotke and Lise LePage over a comment posted on the community news site they co-founded, iBrattleboro.com. The plaintiff, Effie Mayhew, had argued that they should have edited or removed the allegedly defamatory comment...

Town's Unposted Meetings Violated Law

Posted on March 20, 2008
The town of Charlton's ad hoc Water Search Subcommittee violated the Massachusetts open meeting law when it met in a series of unposted meetings, the Worcester District Attorney's Office has ruled. According to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, the meetings came to light after the newspaper filed a public records request for the subcommittee's minutes...

Podcast: Spitzer and the Law

Posted on March 20, 2008
Lawyers considered Eliot Spitzer either a hero or a villain. But as the now-former governor of New York faces possible criminal charges, we explore the case against him on this week's edition of the legal-affairs podcast LegalTalkNetwork. Joining my cohost J...

Sunshine Week coverage in Mass.

Posted on March 17, 2008
I am collecting links to Sunshine Week coverage by Massachusetts newspapers at the Web site of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association.

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