Welcome to the Citizen Media Law Brief, a weekly newsletter highlighting recent blog posts, media law news, legal threat entries, and other new content on the Citizen Media Law Project's website. You are receiving this email because you have expressed interest in the CMLP or registered on our site, www.citmedialaw.org. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, you can unsubscribe by following the link at the bottom of this email or by going to http://www.citmedialaw.org/newsletter/subscriptions.
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The latest from the Citizen Media Law Project blog...
Sam Bayard evaluates AutoAdmit defendant's arguments for staying anonymous.
"AK47" Files Motion to Quash in AutoAdmit Case
Dan Gillmor comments on the Wikileaks case and the Edison Chen episode.
The Net Remembers, for Good and Bad
David Ardia discusses media coalition's "friend of the court" brief in the Wikileaks case.
Coalition of Media Organizations Challenges Prior Restraints in Wikileaks Case
Sam Bayard looks at a Texas case involving MySpace and teen suicide.
MySpace Sued Over Teen Suicide
CMLP Staff discusses why insurance is valuable if you publish online.
Highlights from the Legal Guide: Are Your Online Activities Covered by Insurance?
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Other citizen media law news...
Harvard Scholars to Explore Net Safety
The New York Times - Thurs. 2/28/08
Heavy legal guns ask judge to reverse Wikileaks shutdown
Ars Technica - Wed. 2/27/05
Judge approves "Predator" lawsuit against NBC
Reuters - Tues. 2/26/08
Bounty Hunter Outs Author of Patent Troll Tracker Blog
WSJ.com Law Blog - Tues. 2/26/08
Facebook Poser Gets Three Year Sentence
TechCrunch - Mon. 2/25/08
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Recent threats added to the CMLP database...
CNN v. Pazienza
Posted February 28th, 2008
Alkateeb v. Does
Posted February 28th, 2008
Menhart v. Grossman
Posted February 28th, 2008
Three Unnamed Guitar Heroes v. Ojala
Posted February 28th, 2008
Does v. MySpace II
Posted February 27th, 2008
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The full(er) Brief...
"AK47 represented himself on the motion to quash, but he is not your average pro se litigant. From the looks of the brief and the fact that he was posting on AutoAdmit in the first place, it's fair to say that he is probably a law student or lawyer. Not a great one, however. As Marc Randazza points out, the brief leaves something to be desired, which is too bad because there are strong First Amendment arguments why the court shouldn't allow AT&T to uncover AK47's identity because his statement is pure opinion. Maybe that's too harsh of an assessment of the brief, given that the poor guy only had ten days to prepare and probably had no prior expertise in an admittedly complicated area. . . ."
Sam Bayard, "AK47" Files Motion to Quash in AutoAdmit Case
"What does a Swiss bank that does business in the Cayman Islands have in common with a Hong Kong actor who jets around the globe? They are object lessons this month in a reality that anyone handling information needs to understand. Like toothpaste squeezed from a tube, information, once out in the wild, is all but uncontainable. . . ."
Dan Gillmor, The Net Remembers, for Good and Bad
"Yesterday, a coalition of organizations dedicated to preserving free speech rights on the Internet, including the Citizen Media Law Project, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Los Angeles Times, Gannett, Associated Press, and Society of Professional Journalists, filed a 'friend of the court' brief in the Wikileaks case. If you haven't been following the case, a federal judge in San Francisco issued a stunningly broad injunction on February 15 that brought down Wikileaks.org, a site that is developing what it describes as an 'uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.' . . ."
David Ardia, Coalition of Media Organizations Challenges Prior Restraints in Wikileaks Case
"The family of a fifteen-year-old girl who committed suicide in 2006 after a sexual relationship with a twenty-seven-year-old man she met on MySpace is suing the popular social networking site for negligence and violation of products liability law (i.e., for creating and distributing a defective product). The crux of the complaint is that MySpace negligently 'provided an unprotected social networking site absent of any legitimate means of preventing contact bretween sexual predators and minors.' Compl. ΒΆ 1. The family filed suit against MySpace in state court in Texas in December 2007, also naming as a defendant Kiley Ryan Bowers, the man who allegedly had a relationship with the deceased. . . ."
Sam Bayard, MySpace Sued Over Teen Suicide
"This is the fourth in a series of posts calling attention to some of the topics covered in the Citizen Media Legal Guide we published in January. . . . In this post we highlight the importance of insurance and help you evaluate whether your existing coverage is sufficient. . . . Even frivolous lawsuits dismissed at a relatively early stage of the litigation can be expensive to defend, and the cost skyrockets the longer the litigation continues, particularly if judgment is rendered against you. While most lawsuits never get to trial, if you lack the money to carry out a vigorous defense, the only option available to you may be to settle (perhaps even to take down the allegedly offending content or even your entire site) regardless of the merits of your defense. For these reasons, it is important to assess whether your online activities are covered by your existing homeowners or renters insurance. . . ."
CMLP Staff, Highlights from the Legal Guide: Are Your Online Activities Covered by Insurance?
