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...
Arthur Bright looks at the fair use implications of hosting video excerpts for others to comment on and criticize.
Fox News DMCA-Bombs News1News on YouTube
Marc Randazza gives an Illinois politician a lesson in the First Amendment (and a tongue-lashing).
Hipcheck16 Is No Turk 182 - But Anonymous Political Speech Is Sacred
Andrew Moshirnia warns that a proposed financial fraud exception to Section 230 will bring about Armageddon.
The Cartman Technique: How a Fraud Exception will Mine the ISP Safe Harbor
Eric Robinson reports on a recent opinion grappling with obscenity in the digital age.
"I Know It When I See It." The View from Where?
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Recent threats added to the CMLP database...
Jenzabar, Inc. v. Long Bow Group, Inc.
Posted Nov. 11, 2009
Taylor Building Corp. v. Benfield
Posted Nov. 9, 2009
North Dakota v. Nodland
Posted Nov. 9, 2009
Beverly Stayart v. Yahoo!, Inc. et al
Posted Nov. 9, 2009
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Other citizen media law news...
High Court rejects libel case because article received approximately four visits
Out-Law.com - Fri. 11/13/09
Keeping a Global Eye on Copyright Law
EFF - Fri. 11/13/09
A New Way to Bypass 47 USC 230? Default Injunctions and FRCP 65
Technology & Marketing Law Blog - Tues. 11/10/09
Google may lose WSJ, other News Corp. sites
CNET - Mon. 11/09/09
Federal Rules Interpreted as Barring Twitter Coverage of Trial from Inside Courtroom
The Volokh Conspiracy - Mon. 11/09/09
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The full(er) Brief...
"Like many former newspaper employees, I hate the 24-hour 'news' networks. Be it Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN, I think they're just across-the-board awful. The only time I'll pay any attention to them is in the midst of some event that demands real-time attention, say a presidential election or a terrorist attack (and even then, I may just switch to BBC coverage instead). Other than in those situations, the news channels are just echo chambers for the dreck spewed by your Becks, O'Reillys, Dobbses, and Olbermenn. That dreck fuels a great deal of the blogosphere, of course. Any number of political websites out there take the most offensive, ridiculous samples of bloviation and criticize/herald it in time-honored First Amendment tradition. Indeed, the political blogosphere thrives on clips from these news channel programs. Which makes Fox News' recent DCMA-bombing of one of the key left-wing YouTube channels serving up such clips so interesting. . . . What I find most interesting in this case is not Fox's barefaced attempt to shut up its critics. Who didn't expect that? And Fox is arguably within its rights to assert copyright infringement against News1News. But what I find interesting is how News1News' video-clipping 'service' squares with fair use. . . ."
Arthur Bright, Fox News DMCA-Bombs News1News on YouTube
"During an election in Buffalo Grove, Ill., an online debate started about a candidate for Village Trustee, Lisa Stone. During that debate, this public official's 15 year old son, Jed, got a little upset about some harsh statements lobbed at his mother, so he joined the debate -- in particular, getting into a flame war with 'Hipcheck16'. . . . Stone sought Hipcheck16's identity, apparently through a pre-suit subpoena. Stone claimed, 'a comment was posted on this public forum by Hipcheck16 directed to the minor Petitioner that was defamatory.' The judge ruled that Hipcheck16's identity could be revealed to Stone if she decided to take legal action. Stone calls this case about 'protection on the internet.' Piecing together the story from the above-quoted news account and this story, this seems . . . more like abuse of power mated with mama drama and a judge who got the law entirely wrong. . . . In order to show that there is any merit at all to her case, Ms. Stone would need to show that there was an actionable legal wrong -- and that wrong was visited upon her son. That seems, as a matter of law, to be an impossibility. . . ."
Marc Randazza, Hipcheck16 Is No Turk 182 - But Anonymous Political Speech Is Sacred
"After being manhandled by the housing market and countless Ponzi schemes, investors are tired of being victimized. In an effort to hobble unscrupulous economic predators, the House is considering the Investor Protection Act of 2009, which generally bolsters SEC oversight. This is a good thing. However, the Act also carves out a Fraud exception from Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, which protects ISPs from liability for the actions of third-party users. . . . In order to make sure that ISP's do not have to routinely violate the privacy of their customers, and in order to allow the Internet Forum to exist sans Prior Restraint, we immunize ISP's from the uncivil, jackassery perpetrated on the Internet. So if a website defames you, you sue the defamer and not the webhost. . . . But that will no longer be true if and when the Investor Protection Act of 2009 passes. Section 508 of that law will hold ISPs liable for the actions of scam artists passing themselves off as members of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation . . . ."
Andrew Moshirnia, The Cartman Technique: How a Fraud Exception will Mine the ISP Safe Harbor
"In 2007, Kilbride and Schaffer were convicted of violating the Controlling the Assault of Non-solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM Act). . . . Kilbride and Schaffer appealed, leading to an important decision on how the Supreme Court's standards for obscenity apply on the Internet. U.S. v. Kilbride, No. 07-10528 (9th Cir. Oct. 28, 2009). . . . In the appeal of their convictions, Kilbride and Schaffer argued to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the trial court's instructions to the jury regarding 'community standards' for obscenity were erroneous. . . . The court then went further, agreeing with the defendants' contention that a national standard, rather than a local standard, should apply to e-mail. After parsing the various opinions in the 2002 Ashcroft decision, supra, the Ninth Circuit in Kilbride held that 'a national community standard must be applied in regulating obscene speech on the Internet, including obscenity disseminated via email.' . . ."
Eric P. Robinson, "I Know It When I See It." The View from Where?
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