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 urges those heralding the latest Google decision in the U.K. to cool their heels.
British Court Clears Google of 'Defamatory' Search Results, But It Still Sucks to be a Web Host in Britain

Andrew Moshirnia imagines how Farenheit 451 might translate to the digital age.
The Future of Digital Book Burning: Why Remote Line-Item Retraction is Scarier than Remote Volume Deletion

Sam Bayard takes on the Erin Andrews legal handwringers.
News Flash: Watching the Erin Andrews Video Is Perverted, Not Illegal

Andrew Moshirnia examines another lose-lose cease-and-desist situation.
An Inter-Newspaper Cease-and-Desist Letter: My Trip to the Buffet of Wrong

Courtney French has insight on the latest Wikipedia fracas.
Fight at the Museum: London's National Portrait Gallery Takes Aim at U.S. Wikipedia User

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Recent threats added to the CMLP database...

New York Times v. Republican Governors Association
Posted July 24, 2009

Gorman v. Meale
Posted July 21, 2009

Rejuvenation Strax and Aesthetics Institute v. Durham
Posted July 21, 2009

First Call Properties v. Craigslist
Posted July 20, 2009

Nevyas v. Morgan
Posted July 19, 2009

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Other citizen media law news...

A.P. Cracks Down on Unpaid Use of Articles on Web
The New York Times - Thurs. 07/23/09

Prior Restraints in the Fourth Circuit and North Carolina
The Newsroom Law Blog - Thurs. 07/23/09

Artist Finds His Own Music Video Removed From YouTube, Lashes Out On Twitter
TechCrunch - Thurs. 07/23/09

Apple drops legal threats against wiki operator — for now
Ars Technica - Wed. 07/22/09

FTC Hopes to Issue Blogger Guidelines By Year End
MediaPost - Wed. 07/22/09

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The full(er) Brief...

"As nearly every American lawyer knows, London is the libel capital of the world. There are a bunch of reasons why, of course: defendants have the burden of proving the truth of their statements; neither negligence nor actual malice is required for liability; there's no distinction between public and private figures; etc. But regardless of the reasons, Great Britain is the place to sue for defamation. Heck, it's so bad that it's gotten the lefty ACLU in bed with the neo-con American Center for Democracy! So you know it's serious. That makes this week's ruling in Britain that Google isn't liable for the content of its users quite noteworthy. Google was sued for defamation by a London-based company called Metropolitan International Schools Ltd ('MIS'), which offers correspondence courses in game design marketed as 'Train2Game.' If one searches for that term on Google, among the results are forums hosted by digitaltrends.com where Train2Game is called a scam. According to a fairly lengthy write-up of the lawsuit on the site out-law.com (run by Pinsent Masons LLP), MIS was particularly peeved by the phrase 'Train2Game new SCAM for Scheidegger' that comes up. (MIS used to be branded Scheidegger MIS.) MIS denied that it was running a scam and argued that this snippet search result was defamatory, and that Google, as the engine producing such a result, was liable for it. Oddly enough, the British judge didn't buy it. In what appears at first to be a break from the few cases that do exist under British law for web hosts' liability for third-party content, Mr. Justice Eady found that Google was not a publisher of the libelous content and thus could not be held responsible for it. . . ."
Arthur Bright, British Court Clears Google of 'Defamatory' Search Results, But It Still Sucks to be a Web Host in Britain 

"Amazon did its best impersonation of Big Brother last week, when it reached into Kindles the world over and remotely deleted copies of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. Witty title writers thanked their lucky stars and began stamping out stories comparing Amazon to the Ministry of Truth. Once again, the Twitterati mercilessly mocked Amazon. Double-Plus Outrage ensued. And rightly so. Amazon's possession of a limitless digital flamethrower is generally creepy. But I think we are ignoring the scariest part of this technology. Amazon used its power to delete entire volumes, a tactic with all the subtlety of carpet bombing. But this technology could be used like a sniper rifle, replacing small portions of an offending work and leaving the reader none the wiser. This use is infinitely more terrifying. Let's engage in a little thought experiment. Pretend you are a celebrity or a politician or the head of global corporation or just a generally important entity. And let's say you've been offended or embarrassed or defamed in part of a written work. Maybe a paragraph describing your marital indiscretions, maybe a picture showing your polluting ways. You are thinking of suing. And you don't want the publisher's money, you just want the offending material to disappear. In that scenario, do you think that you would ask for the elimination of the entire work? Of course not. That would attract even more attention to your villainy. . . ."
Andrew Moshirnia, The Future of Digital Book Burning: Why Remote Line-Item Retraction is Scarier than Remote Volume Deletion

"CBS News is reporting that downloading or watching the peephole video of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews walking around naked in a hotel room is a crime: '. . .CBS News Legal Analyst Lisa Bloom [] said downloading or watching the nude Erin Andrews video is illegal. "Its like buying or selling stolen property," said Bloom. . . .' Oops. Looks like the CBS reporter who wrote this piece should have asked for a second legal opinion. Unlike the hacked Twitter documents, this video is not even arguably stolen property. The creepy videographer probably violated state 'Peeping Tom' or criminal surveillance laws, and is likely liable to Andrews for intrusion, but this doesn't make the video or the images contained in it stolen, as Ms. Bloom implies. So, there's no chance that Internet users viewing or downloading the video are violating state criminal laws against receipt or sale of stolen property. And given that we're not dealing with child pornography or legally obscene material, I fail to see any other ground for saying that viewing or downloading the video is a crime. Admittedly, that doesn't mean it's not icky. . . ."
Sam Bayard, News Flash: Watching the Erin Andrews Video Is Perverted, Not Illegal

"Buffets are monuments to the tyranny of choice. When presented with a plethora of options, many people just freeze up -- stopping somewhere between the crab claws and the gelato bar. Today I found myself in a similar overwhelmed position as I read Platinum Equity's cease-and-desist letter to the San Diego Reader. You see, there are just so many shockingly wrong aspects of this attempt to chill speech, it was hard to pick just one to harp on. Quick recap: Platinum Equity, a buyout firm based in Beverly Hills, recently bought the San Diego Union-Tribune. In 2006, two former employees of Platinum sued the firm for sexual harassment, claiming that the firm 'creates and tolerates a persistent, and pervasively sexually charged and hostile environment for women.' This case was eventually dismissed. The San Diego Reader, another San Diego based newspaper, had the audacity to inquire as to the nature of the dismissal - namely, was it the result of a settlement? The Reader presumably did this because it's a, you know, newspaper, and the mistreatment of women in the workplace is typically considered news. . . . Platinum took offense to this inquiry and alerted their counsel, Martin Singer, who drafted the longest cease-and-desist letter of all time, warning that if the Reader so much as implied that Platinum had 'engaged in wrongdoing as alleged in those lawsuits or otherwise, [the Reader] will be exposed to substantial liability for claims including defamation.' The penultimate paragraph of the letter warned '[y]ou proceed at your peril.' Singer sent this letter with the caveat that the communiqué itself 'is a confidential legal communication and is not for publication.' In fact, Singer claimed that '[a]ny publication . . . of any portion of this letter will constitute . . . a violation of the Copyright Act.' So you see my dilemma. . . ."
Andrew Moshirnia, An Inter-Newspaper Cease-and-Desist Letter: My Trip to the Buffet of Wrong

"The National Portrait Gallery in London has threatened to take legal action against a U.S. citizen who posted images of the gallery's paintings of rich, white, and dead British people onto Wikimedia Commons. The NPG sent a detailed letter to Wikimedia contributor Derrick Coetzee claiming that his actions constitute copyright infringement, database infringement, and breach of contract under U.K. law. The NPG said in its letter that it would not take legal action against Coetzee if he removes the images from the site, as well as deletes all other copies of the images he possesses, by July 20. . . . Although Coetzee's posts would likely be considered fair use in the U.S., the concept of fair use (called 'fair dealing' under the U.K. statute) is not as broad in the U.K. Across the pond, the fair dealing exception applies only to certain non-commercial uses, and differs depending upon the type of work at issue. Accordingly, it's debatable whether Coetzee's use fits within the fair dealing exception. . . ."
Courtney French, Fight at the Museum: London's National Portrait Gallery Takes Aim at U.S. Wikipedia User

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