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 gives the New York legislature a talking to.
Jim Dolan Shows Why Anti-SLAPP Laws Are Good (And Why New York Needs a Better One)
Sam Bayard offers up ring-side seats for one of the year's more amusing UDRP fights.
His Identity Revealed, Publisher of Glenn Beck Parody Site Comes Out Swinging
Eric Robinson reports that the Seventh Circuit still doesn't want to see "Judges on Film" (sorry, Duran Duran).
For Once, Illinois Federal Judge Lets 'Em Roll: And Gets Bulldozed
Andrew Moshirnia schools ACORN on the law of unintended consequences.
I Can Clearly See You’re Nuts: ACORN’s Insane Civil Suit
Arthur Bright reports that the Senate is showing no love for pajama-wearing, Cheetos-eating bloggers.
Senate Cuts Citizen Bloggers From Federal Shield Bill
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Recent threats added to the CMLP database...
Thompson v. Facebook
Posted Oct. 1, 2009
Beck v. Eiland-Hall
Posted Sept. 28, 2009
Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of Illinois v. Peshek
Posted Sept. 28, 2009
Posted Sept. 28, 2009
City of Kirkland v. Sheehan
Posted Sept. 28, 2009
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Other citizen media law news...
Court Order Served Over Twitter
BBC News - Thurs. 10/01/09
Why Did Sen. Schumer Attempt to Limit The Press Shield Law?
Huffington Post - Thurs. 10/01/09
Minor Win for Bloggers in Fourth Circuit's GHF Ruling
E-Commerce and Tech Law - Mon. 09/28/09
Did Google Yield Too Easily to a Baseless Court Order?
CL&P Blog - Mon. 09/28/09
Web sites with anonymous comments denied university press passes
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press - Mon. 09/28/09
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The full(er) Brief...
"Now, I am not from New York. Thus, I don't know much about Jim Dolan, the owner of Cablevision, Newsday, Madison Square Garden, and the New York Knicks. But the local press offers a sense of the man. The New York Daily News said that he is 'a little bit wacky, lashing out indiscriminately behind the scenes, speaking nonsense whenever he talks at all.' Gawker, a New York blog, said that his 'loathing for reporters, propensity for feuds, and general belligerence are legendary.' With that in mind, it's no particular surprise that he has sued New York blog Cityfile into retracting a story that it ran over the summer with the headline 'Jim Dolan to Kill Christmas in July?' . . . I may just be a humble law student, but I'm pretty confident that any decent First Amendment lawyer could have gotten this lawsuit thrown out of court. It is not at all clear that the article's speculation about Dolan's business plans was defamatory, and then there's the always-daunting task of proving actual malice. But we'll never know for sure because Cityfile settled and retracted the story. Why? A good guess is that Cityfile feared that protracted litigation with a high-powered opponent would put a severe financial strain on its limited resources. Dolan might not have won, but his no-doubt substantial war chest would have made Cityfile's victory Pyrrhic at best. And thus we come to the moral of the story: New York needs a better anti-SLAPP law. Under these circumstances, a robust anti-SLAPP law would have given Cityfile significantly more leverage because of the prospect of dismissing the case early and recovering attorneys' fees. While New York has an anti-SLAPP law on the books, it's incredibly narrow. . . . "
Arthur Bright, Jim Dolan Shows Why Anti-SLAPP Laws Are Good (And Why New York Needs a Better One)
"We reported earlier this month that Glenn Beck filed a UDRP action against glennbeckrapedandmurdereda younggirlin1990.com seeking transfer of the domain name. Beck alleges that the website, which instantiates an Internet meme born on Fark.com that pokes fun at Beck's rhetorical style, is improperly using his trademarked name. This week, First Amendment bad ass Marc Randazza filed a response brief on behalf of Isaac Eiland-Hall, the previously anonymous individual behind the site. . . . One aspect of the case that especially interests me is the unmasking of Eiland-Hall, who created the website and registered the domain name anonymously using the WhoisGuard domain privacy service. Beck initially filed the UDRP complaint against WhoisGuard because he didn't know who was behind the site. The details of what happened next aren't entirely clear to me, but either WhoisGuard divulged Eiland-Hall's identity to Beck, or Eiland-Hall came forward voluntarily to fight for his domain. I hadn't thought of it before, but UDRP actions might constitute a significant loophole in First Amendment protection for anonymous speech. That is, filing a UDRP action just might be a convenient way for an (allegedly) aggrieved party to identify an anonymous online critic without jumping through the hoops imposed by many U.S. courts. Indeed (and this is pure speculation), Beck might have brought this UDRP action precisely to get Eiland-Hall's identity in order to file a defamation lawsuit against him in another forum. . . ."
Sam Bayard, His Identity Revealed, Publisher of Glenn Beck Parody Site Comes Out Swinging
"Judge Frank Easterbrook, chief judge of the 7th Circuit, has issued an opinion chiding Federal District Judge Joe Billy McDade for allowing cameras into a consent decree hearing in a school discrimination case, saying that it violated a 1996 resolution of the 7th Circuit Judicial Council adopting the national Judicial Council's ban on cameras. . . . Judge McDade initially decided to allow only local television stations to cover the September 15th hearing, in which various parties were permitted to comment on the consent decree which settled the case, with the expectation that the local stations would cover the hearing live. But after lawyers for the local newspaper, The News-Gazette, moved to intervene and argued that the paper should be permitted to bring in its own video and still cameras, McDade opened the hearing to video, still camera, and audio coverage more generally. In the end, 'at least four video cameras, two audio recorders and one still camera' recorded the hearing, according to The News-Gazette coverage. Besides the newspaper, cameras were present from the local TV stations, and two local radio stations used audio equipment. . . . Easterbrook noted the ongoing debate about whether cameras should be permitted in federal courtrooms, but ruled that this was a policy question beyond the purview of a district court judge. . . ."
Eric P. Robinson, For Once, Illinois Federal Judge Lets 'Em Roll: And Gets Bulldozed
"'Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! . . . except the weasels.' - Homer J. Simpson. . . . The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is an amalgam of several organizations and non-profits that serve low- and middle-income populations. ACORN's support of Democratic candidates and Left-leaning policies, as well as allegations of financial and electoral misconduct, have earned ACORN the ire of conservatives. Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, two such conservatives with the backing of breitbart.com, punk'd ACORN by posing as a prostitute and pimp in need of housing and tax (evasion) advice. Giles and O'Keefe secretly videotaped their visits to several ACORN offices. In these tapes, employees appear to aid or at least not to object to the pimp's trafficking of underage sex workers. The filmmakers released the tapes; employees were fired; the Republicans howled; and the Democrats, in a bid to steal some of the GOP's thunder, defunded ACORN with surprising quickness. Now, ACORN has filed suit against the filmmakers and their patron in the Circuit Court for Baltimore, alleging violations of Maryland wiretapping law. . . . But the courtroom is not where ACORN wants to fight this battle. . . ."
Andrew Moshirnia, I Can Clearly See You’re Nuts: ACORN’s Insane Civil Suit
"For citizen journalists, the federal shield law front was looking good for a while. Although the House of Representatives version of the bill, passed in April, only offered a shield to professional bloggers, the Senate version didn't differentiate between the pros and the amateurs. So there was hope that amateur journalists might actually, eventually, get its protection. No longer though. Sadly, the Senate Judiciary Committee has followed the path of the House and opted to specify that only a 'salaried employee . . . or independent contractor' will be able to invoke the shield, reports the Wall Street Journal's Digits blog. . . . So, it looks like the feds aren't going to come through, and citizen journalists will have to look to their own states and to the judiciary for shield law protections. Because the states have been better about passing shield laws generally, it might not be too much to hope that they'll be better about applying them to unpaid journalists. . . ."
Arthur Bright, Senate Cuts Citizen Bloggers From Federal Shield Bill
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