Jeff Hermes's blog

Seven Years of Serving and Studying the Legal Needs of Digital Journalism

We have some important news to share from the Digital Media Law Project. After seven years of providing legal assistance to independent journalism through various methods, the DMLP will soon spin off its most effective initiatives and cease operation as a stand-alone project within the Berkman Center.

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Service and Research at the Frontier of Media Law

Earlier today the Digital Media Law Project released a new report, The Legal Needs of Emerging Online Media: The Online Media Legal Network after 500 Referrals.

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Revised DOJ Regs Protect "Members of the News Media," But What Does That Mean?

On February 21, 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice released its long-awaited revisions to 28 C.F.R. § 50.10, the DOJ's regulatory guidelines (the "Guidelines") regarding investigations and prosecutions of members of the news media.

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A Quick Thought on Bloggers, Opinion, and Today's Ruling from the Ninth Circuit

Earlier today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit released its decision in Obsidian Finance Group, LLC, v. Cox, No. 12-35238 (9th Cir. Jan. 17, 2014), a case involving defamation claims brought against a blogger who wrote about alleged financial improprieties  in connection with a corporate bankruptcy.

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Wrapping 2013 at the Digital Media Law Project

Here we are again, at the end of another year with snow on the ground and Harvard University's winter shutdown rapidly approaching. Tomorrow, the staff of the Digital Media Law Project will be off to spend time with friends and family until Harvard's doors reopen in 2014; but before we go, I wanted to take a quick look back at this year's highlights at the DMLP.

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Getting Dirty to Protect Crowdsourced Data and Public Information

Yesterday, the Digital Media Law Project joined an all-star cast of organizations (including the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kentucky, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Public Participat

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A Click is Worth a Thousand Words: Fourth Circuit Sees the Value of a "Like"

On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its decision in Bland v.

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Congratulations to Nevada on its New and Improved Anti-SLAPP Law!

As of October 1, 2013, those targeted with frivolous lawsuits in Nevada designed to chill speech will enjoy substantially stronger protection, thanks to Nevada's new and improved anti-SLAPP statute.

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Who is a Journalist? Here We Go Again…

In the wake of the Associated Press and James Rosen incidents, the call for statutory protection for journalists and their sources has started anew. The Obama administration has called on Sen.

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Justice Dept.'s Media Investigation Policy Falls Flat Compared to Other Protections Against Press Intrusion

As has been widely reported, the U.S. Department of Justice has disclosed that it has obtained two months' worth of telephone records from 20 separate phone lines assigned to the journalists and offices of the Associated Press.

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When Comments Turn Ugly: Newspaper Websites and Anonymous Speech

Dan Kennedy has reported on an interesting anonymous speech issue brewing (or perhaps already boiled over) in the town of Cohasset, Massachusetts.

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Misidentifications Past and Present: Terror, Suspicion & the Media

The DMLP blog has been on an unplanned break for a while as a result of the Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent manhunt. Like many in the Boston-Cambridge-Watertown area, we have had our past two weeks disrupted both with our personal attempts to come to terms with this senseless act of violence and by last Friday's "shelter-in-place" request by law enforcement.

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Judge: Blogging from the Courtroom OK, Twitter Not So Much

As Bob Ambrogi reports, on February 19, 2013, Massachusetts Superior Court Justice Peter Lauriat held a hearing in the case of C

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FTC Clarifies Obligations of Product Reviewers, But Does Not Ease Concerns

On March 12, 2013, the Federal Trade Commission released a new guidance paper entitled ".com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising." The new FTC guidance updates a prior FTC release from 2000 relating to disclosures in online advertising.

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On a Very Long Walk, Paul Salopek Sees a Ray of Light from the IRS

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Salopek is currently on a long walk...a walk across continents that is expected to take approximately seven years to complete.

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We are the Digital Media Law Project

Many of you who have followed the adventures of the Citizen Media Law Project know that we have been contemplating a change of our project's name for quite some time (the eagle-eyed will have seen our new name and logo appearing in stealth fashion here and there on our site and elsewhere).

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Introducing Jillian Stonecipher!

It gives me great pleasure to welcome our newest blogger, Jillian Stonecipher! Jillian, a 2L at Harvard Law School, is no stranger to our project, having worked with us as an intern throughout the 2012-13 academic year. When not hanging around the Berkman Center, Jillian works on both the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender and the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology.

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Heads Up, Online Radicals -- You're Next

For me, thinking about one of the Obama administration's latest initiatives to keep us all safe online is like one of those pattern recognition puzzles (you know, like "What is the next term in this sequence: O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, N, __?").  Here, the sequence is:

cyber bullies, scammers, gangs, sexual predators, ________?

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Filing Lawsuits in the United States over Google Autocomplete is...

On December 21, 2012, Dr. Guy Hingston, a cancer surgeon from Port Macquarie in New South Wales, Australia, filed suit against Google in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Dr.

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