Blogs

CMLP and Cyberlaw Clinic Ask Supreme Judicial Court to Affirm Public Right of Access to Inquest Records

With the help of Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic, the Citizen Media Law Project and a coalition of New England media and advocacy organizations submitted an amicus curiae brief last week to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, seeking to ensure a public right of access to inquest materials that will allow journalists, bloggers, and other news gatherers to inform citizens on matters of public concern.

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Rethinking Sunshine in the Beehive State

After enacting a colossally backward law in recent weeks that undermined Utah's open records law, the Utah government is now considering a repeal of the bill that earned Utah the Society of Professional Journalists' inaugural Black Hole Award, which goes to "the most heinous violations of the public's right to know."

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A Fine Day for FTC's Blogger Rules

The Federal Trade Commission has announced the first monetary penalty under its "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising": a $250,000 settlement with a company that sells guitar lessons on DVDs.

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Software Best Practices and Open Source Derivative Works

We received a request not long ago from one of the lawyers in our Online Media Legal Network who is looking for legal resources on a couple different issues tied to software development, particularly open source software development.  And frankly, they're the sorts of resources that we expect more and more lawyers will have need for.  Thus, we're reposting the requests here - along with my first stab at researching them - in the hopes of drumming up a bit of crowdsourcing to find the answers.

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Media Bloggers Assn Files Amicus Brief in Righthaven Case, Blasts Business Model Behind Lawsuits

Yesterday, the Media Bloggers Association filed an amicus brief in Righthaven LLC v. Hyatt, urging a federal judge in Nevada to award only minimal damages and no attorney's fees to Righthaven against a blogger who failed to appear in the case and is facing a default judgment.  We've covered a number of Righthaven lawsuits in our legal threats database, but this case now has a spicy twist.

On October 6, 2010, Righthaven sued Bill Hyatt, who operates a blog called "News for Everyone" (appears to be shutdown), for copyright infringement, claiming that he had copied a Las Vegas Review-Journal entertainment column titled "FX's Manly Man Shows Hold Outsider Appeal."  After Hyatt didn't respond to the lawsuit, Righthaven filed a motion for default judgment, asking the court to award it control of the domain name for Hyatt's website, $150,000 in damages, and $1,850 in legal fees and costs.

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CMLP and Cyberlaw Clinic Urge First Circuit to Affirm First Amendment Right to Make Cellphone Recording of Police

With the help of Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic, the Citizen Media Law Project and a coalition of media and advocacy organizations submitted an amicus curiae brief last week to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in a case involving a lawyer who was arrested for using his ce

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Online Media Legal Network Announces Partnership with Investigative News Network

We are pleased to announce that the Online Media Legal Network (OMLN) is partnering with the Investigative News Network (INN) to help INN member organizations find pro bono and low-cost legal help. We are honored to join forces with INN, whose members are engaged in some of the most exciting and innovat

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Dan Snyder is butthurt, SLAPP suit ensues, Irony meter pegged

Washington Redskins owner, Dan Snyder, seems to have awfully thin skin for a guy who owns a sports team named after a racial insult.

Snyder filed a frivolous defamation suit against the Washington City Paper ("WCP") based upon an article "The Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder."

Snyder accuses the WCP of spreading "lies, half-truths, innuendo, and anti-Semitic imagery" to defame him, seeking $2 million in damages.  The amount is split between two claims, the first for defamation and the second for false light.  The "anti-semitic imagery" he complains of is a crude addition of horns, a unibrow and Anton LaVey-esque goatee to Snyder's photograph in the WCP, which can be seen here.

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Trademarks: Why Registering Your Design or Logo May Not Protect You

What are the differences between “special form” (stylized, design, logo) trademarks and “standard character” (word) trademarks?

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U.K. Extends Consumer Disclosure Laws Online, As In U.S.

The Office of Fair Trading, the British equivalent of the United States Federal Trade Commission, has determined that the hiring of bloggers and other social media contributors to promote particular products without adequate disclosure of the relationship may violate U.K. consumer protection laws. Handpicked Media Ltd (Handpicked Media), Case Ref. CRE-E-25932 (OFT Dec. 13, 2010).

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New Conference for Internet Law Scholars

Call For Papers:

The High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law and the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School are pleased to announce a new annual works-in-progress series for Internet Law scholarship. The inaugural event will be held at Santa Clara University on March 5, 2011. Thereafter, the event will rotate between NYLS and SCU each Spring semester.

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Social Media Policies: Fed Labor Law Problem?

A Connecticut company suspended and then fired an employee for making disparaging comments on Facebook about the company and about her supervisor.

Not in dispute is that the employee’s actions violated the company’s social media and other personnel policies, which (among other things) prohibited depicting the company ‘in any way’ on Facebook or other social media sites or from “disparaging” or “discriminatory” “comments when discussing the company or the employee’s superiors” and “co-workers.”

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Introducing Guest Blogger Andrew Mirsky

I'm excited to welcome Andrew Mirsky as a guest blogger.  Andrew is an attorney and Principal of Mirsky & Company, PLLC, a law firm with particular emphasis in new media, intellectual property, technology, corporate and nonprofits. He has 17 years' experience as a business and commercial lawyer, including 5 years' experience in company management of media and technology enterprises.

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First Amendment Alert! Author arrested for writing a book

I'm the first to admit that Phillip Greaves is not the most sympathetic figure in America. Greaves wrote "The Pedophile's Guide," which was originally for sale on Amazon.com before the online retailer bowed to public pressure and pulled the book from its online shelves.

I don't necessarily have a problem with that.

But, I have a big problem with today's developments. The Orlando Sentinel reports that Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd had Mr. Greaves arrested in Pueblo, Colorado on obscenity charges.

Lets remember that Grady Judd's jurisdiction is home to meth labs, cops who diddle children, and a pretty high incest rate.

Despite the "real crime" in his jurisdiction, Judd instructed his detectives to request an autographed copy of the book. Mr. Greaves obliged and Judd used that as his justification for having Greaves indicted on obscenity charges in his little caliphate of inbred-methistan.

Greaves told ABC News last month he wasn't trying to promote pedophilia and was not himself a pedophile: "I'm not saying I want them around children, I'm saying if they're there, that's how I want them to [behave]." (source)

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Citizen Media Law Project is Hiring an Assistant Director

Are you a lawyer interested in dealing with emerging legal issues related to law, journalism, and new media on the Internet?  Would you like to help online journalism and new media ventures meet their legal needs?  Do you want a stimulating yet laid back work environment?

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Show Me the Money...

We know that our readers are a pretty creative, enterprising bunch. Now you can get some cash to help fund your idea.

Our friends over at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation are running a grant competition called the Knight News Challenge, which awards up to $5 million for innovative projects that use digital technology to transform the way communities send, receive and make use of news and information.

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Intentional Grounding: Can Public Colleges Limit Athletes' Tweets?

An exercise we did Friday at Univeristy of Nevada, Reno's High School Journalism Day raised an interesting legal question: can a public university restrict its students' use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter?

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