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...
David Ardia applauds the Obama Administration's efforts at greater government transparency.
FOIA Ombudsman Moves One Step Closer to Reality
David Ardia reports on a recent criminal threat directed at a Phoenix blogger.
Phoenix Police Raid Local Blogger Who Runs "Bad Phoenix Cops" Blog
Sam Bayard analyzes a troubling prior restraint on a mortgage industry watchdog site.
New Hampshire Court Tramples on Constitution, Reporter's Privilege, Section 230, What Have You
Michael Lindenberger offers a journalist's perspective on the AP's legal maneuvering.
AP Tells Google and Other News Aggregators to Pay Up or Face Lawsuits
Sam Bayard discusses a case addressing expectations of privacy in MySpace pages.
California Court Rules That MySpace Postings Aren't Private
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Recent threats added to the CMLP database...
Duffin v. Does
Posted Apr. 9, 2009
D'Amato v. Starr
Posted Apr. 9, 2009
Arizona v. Pataky
Posted Apr. 9, 2009
Associated Press v. All Headline News
Posted Apr. 7, 2009
Monex Deposit Co. v. Gilliam
Posted Apr. 7, 2009
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Other citizen media law news...
Yelp Will Let Businesses Respond to Web Reviews
The New York Times - Thurs. 04/09/09
Listening to the Dot-Commenters
The Washington Post - Thurs. 04/09/09
Techmeme founder: WSJ, NYT are aggregators
CNET - Wed. 04/08/09
A.P. Exec Doesn't Know It Has A YouTube Channel: Threatens Affiliate For Embedding Videos
TechCrunch - Wed. 04/08/09
Kansas police raid student's apartment, seize computer, over YouTube video
Photography is Not a Crime - Wed. 04/08/09
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The full(er) Brief...
"Last month, we reported that President Obama had begun making good on his promise of reinvigorating the federal Freedom of Information Act ('FOIA'). One of the first tangible steps involved Attorney General Eric Holder instructing government agencies to favor release of documents to the public. Well, the good news keeps coming, with President Obama having recently submitted a budget for fiscal year 2010 that includes $1 million for the new Office of Government Information Services ('OGIS') that would serve as an 'ombudsman' for FOIA requests by accepting citizen complaints, issuing opinions on disputes, and fostering best practices within the government. This is in stark contrast to the previous administration, which submitted a budget for fiscal year 2009 that sought to locate OGIS in the Department of Justice and provided no funding for its work. Instead, under President Obama's budget plan, OGIS will be housed in the National Archives and Records Administration, as required by the OPEN Government Act of 2007. . . ."
David Ardia, FOIA Ombudsman Moves One Step Closer to Reality
"Last month, Phoenix police raided the home of Jeff Pataky, a blogger who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, a blog that, not surprisingly, has been highly critical of the Phoenix Police Department. According to The Arizona Republic, Pataky's home was raided by ten Phoenix police officers who handcuffed his girlfriend for three hours while they conducted the raid. 'We have heard internally from our police sources that they purposefully did this to stop me,' Pataky told the Republic. 'They took my cable modem and wireless router. Anyone worth their salt knows nothing is stored in the cable modem.' . . . The deeply troubling search warrant provides little insight into what police believe Pataky has done. It does, however, mention repeatedly that police were to search for personal correspondence between Pataky and 'Dave Barnes.' According to The Arizona Republic, Barnes is a former Phoenix homicide detective who went public in 2007 with claims of mismanaged evidence at the city's crime lab. In May 2009, Barnes' home also was raided by police due to his alleged 'involvement in what some officers perceived to be a connection to a blog critical of the police leaders,' the Republic reported at the time. . . ."
David Ardia, Phoenix Police Raid Local Blogger Who Runs "Bad Phoenix Cops" Blog
"A reader recently tipped us off to a troubling ruling from a trial court in New Hampshire: The Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc., No. 08-E-0572 (N.H. Super. Ct. Mar. 11, 2009). In the decision, Justice McHugh of the Superior Court for Rockingham County ordered the publishers of the popular mortgage watchdog website, The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter ('ML-Implode'), to turn over the identity of an anonymous source who provided ML-Implode with a copy of a financial document prepared by The Mortgage Specialists, Inc., for submission to the New Hampshire Banking Department. The court also ordered ML-Implode to reveal the identity of an anonymous commenter who allegedly posted defamatory statements about the company and enjoined the website from re-posting the financial document or the allegedly defamatory comments. . . . Justice McHugh's decision is troubling on so many levels that it is hard to even list them all, but I will start with its blasé attitude towards the whole matter. The court issued no detailed findings of fact or conclusions of law before issuing the injunction, held no evidentiary hearing (apparently the parties agreed to this), and failed to even specify what cause of action supported its decision to enjoin publication of the 2007 Loan Chart. . . ."
Sam Bayard, New Hampshire Court Tramples on Constitution, Reporter's Privilege, Section 230, What Have You
"The Associated Press has announced that it is willing to fight over the question of who owns the content its member newspapers produce, even if it means no longer playing nice with the giants of the Web like Google. On Monday, the AP announced that it would no longer allow news aggregators -- neither the big ones like Google and Yahoo!, nor the smaller, specialized sites -- to use its content without paying up. The announcement was made by William Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group, Inc., at the AP's annual meeting in San Diego. 'We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work. . . . We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it anymore,' Singleton said. Details of how AP plans to enforce its new doctrine were not provided, and Google and other sites defended their practices. . . . There's no question that the stakes are high, and the question of ownership is being asked with greater urgency than ever. (We raised it here recently, in connection with the Huffington Post.) Newspapers are staring into the abyss and contemplating something they once never imagined: a universe without them. That tends to focus one's attention, after all. . . ."
Michael Lindenberger, AP Tells Google and Other News Aggregators to Pay Up or Face Lawsuits
"A California appellate court ruled last week that a young woman could not recover for invasion of privacy based on re-publication of material she posted on her MySpace page. The case involves Cynthia Moreno, a UC Berkeley student who grew up in Coalinga, CA. Like many college students who get a taste of the big city and exposed to lots of new ideas, Cynthia developed a bit of hostility towards her hometown. After a visit in 2006, she posted some 'extremely negative comments' about Coalinga and its inhabitants on her MySpace page, in a posting entitled 'An ode to Coalinga.' Apparently she had second thoughts about airing her gripes online because she removed the posting six days later. Alas it was too late for Cynthia. Roger Campbell, the principal of the local high school, discovered the 'ode' and gave a copy to a friend who worked for the Coalinga Record, a local newspaper. The newspaper published the 'ode' in its Letters to the Editor section, attributing it to Cynthia and giving her full name. To put it bluntly, the good citizens of Coalinga freaked out. . . ."
Sam Bayard, California Court Rules That MySpace Postings Aren't Private
