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...

Andrew Moshirnia on life without the Internet: it's not a good thing.
Internet Amputation and Digital Death: Are Decade-Long Internet Bans Constitutional?

Eric P. Robinson reports on Florida's threat to the supply of "White Chicks and Gang Signs" videos on YouTube.
Florida Sees Gangs in Social Networks, and Prosecutes

Lee Baker asks, "Who's Afraid of Roomates.com?"
Another One Bites the Dust: Roommates as a Hail Mary for Frivolous Lawsuits

Sam Bayard once again chants "Section 230, Section 230, Section 230. . ."
Twitter, WordPress, Ning, and GoDaddy Dragged Into Defamation Lawsuit Over Condo Building

Andrew Moshirnia reports on the newest development in #iranelection.
The Show Must Go On: Iran’s Mass Trial and its Losing War on Bloggers

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Recent threats added to the CMLP database...

Grijalva v. Brandt
Posted August 6, 2009

Moore v. Allen
Posted August 5, 2009

Vinogradov v. Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Posted August 5, 2009

Park West Galleries v. Fine Art Registry
Posted August 5, 2009

Guardian Civic League v. Philadelphia Police Department
Posted August 5, 2009

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Other citizen media law news...

Argentine Judge Holds Google, Yahoo! Liable for Posting Third Party Content
Electronic Commerce & Law Report - Wed. 08/05/09

Web site tracks world online censorship reports
The Washington Post - Tues. 08/04/09

Judge finds Web producer not 'legitimate media'
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press - Mon. 08/03/09

EFF Defends Wikipedian's Right to the Public Domain
EFF Deep Links - Mon. 08/03/09

Anonymous Posters Named in Defamation Suit
ABC News - Mon. 08/03/09

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The full(er) Brief...

"Quick rule of thumb: when a judge is looking to perform an experimental legal amputation, that judge will vivisect a child molester. It's easy to take away the rights of someone who has acted in such a bestial, inhumane manner. One of the problems with this practice is that these restrictions are later visited on less horrible people. They come first for the pedophiles, but then they may come for you. I have written about the judicial practice of imposing Internet prohibitions on sex offenders and wondered if a court would uphold such restrictions on appeal. A recent decision by the Third Circuit, United States v. Thielemann, affirmed a decade-long ban on Internet use for a pedophile and forced me to revisit the question. (Reminder: I am all for the punishment of child molesters. I am not questioning the State's right to incarcerate these individuals, or monitor their behaviors if they are ever released. This discussion is arguably moot since we regularly detain pedophiles even after they have served the maximum sentence; a practice that raises a whole other set of constitutional concerns. See United States v. Comstock, SCOTUS just granted cert.) A federal court may choose from a bevy of conditions when crafting a supervised release under 18 U.S.C. § 3583. The main restriction on impositions is found at § 3583 (d)(2), which stipulates that the restriction 'involves no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary' to deter criminal conduct, protect the public from further crimes by the defendant, and provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment. And when the government's main purpose is to protect children from abuse, it's easy to argue that the end justifies practically any means. Problem is, the deprived citizens have these pesky First and Eighth Amendments at their disposal. . . ."
Andrew Moshirnia, Internet Amputation and Digital Death: Are Decade-Long Internet Bans Constitutional?

"In what appears to be the first use of a new Florida law that criminalizes the promotion of gangs on the Internet, the Lee County Sheriff's Office arrested 15 men over the contents of their MySpace pages, which prosecutors claim advertised and promoted gang membership. The statute, Fla. Stat. 874.11, was adopted on June 30, 2008 as part of the 'Criminal Gang Prevention Act,' and became effective October 1, 2008. . . . Violators face a maximum of five years in prison. Six weeks after the law took effect, The Lee County Sheriff's Office announced that its 'Operation Firewall' initiative under the new law had resulted in the arrest of 14 individuals, with the arrest of a 15th later that day. The suspects ranged in age from 14 to 58 years old, and from those with long criminal records to those with no previous arrests. Prosecutors contended that many of them had displayed their gang membership and criminal intentions on MySpace and other web sites. Examples cited by prosecutors included a 15-year-old's 'hit list' of 'people I wanna kill,' and a 14-year-old's posted pictures of himself dressed in gang colors and displaying gang hand signals. . . ."
Eric P. Robinson, Florida Sees Gangs in Social Networks, and Prosecutes

"Yet another lawsuit that probably should never have been brought has been dismissed due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act[], despite the court's earlier indulgence in allowing the plaintiff to amend her complaint and get a second bite at the apple. The case is Goddard v. Google, Inc., and in his July 30 opinion Judge Jeremy Fogel reconfirmed that Section 230's protections are broad, while indicating that the Ninth Circuit's ruling in Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC, 521 F.3d 1157 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc) should be construed narrowly. The Goddard case involved an individual who clicked on allegedly fraudulent advertisements for mobile subscription service providers (MSSPs), resulting in unauthorized charges to her cell phone bill. She claimed that Google was complicit in the alleged fraud because its AdWords program helped generate the keywords used in the offending advertisements. Although she lodged a variety of claims against Google, including money laundering, breach of contract, and negligence, as the court noted, 'each of Plaintiff's claims, as currently pled, is premised fundamentally on Google's publication of the AdWords advertisements.' Although not a stereotypical Section 230 case, it seemed fairly straightforward that Google would be granted immunity under the statute. . . ."
Lee Baker, Another One Bites the Dust: Roommates as a Hail Mary for Frivolous Lawsuits

"Daniel Neiditch, President of the Board for Atelier Condos on West 42nd Street in New York City, filed a lawsuit last Wednesday against two condo owners and three former employees, alleging that they published defamatory statements on various websites and blogs (defunct), as well as on Twitter (also defunct). The condo building's property manager and the estate of its former resident manager also joined as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed in New York Supreme Court, New York County. The case against the individual defendants is fairly complex and ultimately not that interesting - it involves a string of different websites and some pretty horrific accusations of 'murder, bribery, extortion, illicit payoffs, and corruption.' . . . What makes the case notable is that Neiditch and his fellow plaintiffs also sued Twitter, WordPress.com, and Ning for hosting the allegedly defamatory content, and Go Daddy for providing URL redirects to it. It's amazing that some plaintiffs' lawyers still don't know about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ('Section 230'), which grants interactive online services broad immunity from certain types of legal liability - including defamation - stemming from content created by others. You may recall the lawyer who, back in January, filed a lawsuit against Yelp on behalf of a dentist who was unhappy about a user review - he later admitted that he 'wasn't aware' of Section 230 when he filed suit and voluntarily dismissed the case against the popular review site. Woops. . . ."
Sam Bayard, Twitter, WordPress, Ning, and GoDaddy Dragged Into Defamation Lawsuit Over Condo Building

"Iran's campaign to protect the results of the June 12 double-plus democratic election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shifted into a new gear on Saturday when the regime began the mass trial of more than 100 individuals arrested for their alleged involvement in protests and post-election violence. Iranian leaders likely hope that the trial will serve as a stiff warning to potential protestors, and to Iranian bloggers in particular. But reactions to the regime's latest game of whack-a-blogger have been anything but muted. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president, liberal cleric, and leading reformist blogger, is prominent amongst the accused. You could even say he is the star of the show (trial). The government devoted a televised press conference to Abtahi's 'confession,' in which he claimed that election fraud was a fantasy and apologized for his betrayal of the Islamic Revolution. One shudders to imagine the doubtlessly brutal actions that prompted Abtahi's paean to the regime, but you can view pictures of Abtahi before and after his arrest here. (Fun Fact: America is more permissive of torture than some of the usual suspects.) This is hardly the first time that the regime has targeted bloggers. . . ."
Andrew Moshirnia, The Show Must Go On: Iran’s Mass Trial and its Losing War on Bloggers

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