Week of February 20, 2009 [1]

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 reports on Congress's new libel tourism bill.
Congressional Efforts to Stymie "Libel Tourism" Rev Up [2]

Marc Randazza lauds the dismissal of a lawsuit against the publisher of the humorous book Hot Chicks With Douchebags.
Hey Douchebag! Your Chicks' Case is Outta Here! [3]

David Ardia cautions us to consider a blog host's willingness to stand up for free speech when publishing online.
Another Reminder to Choose Your Hosting Service Carefully [4]

Sam Bayard discusses the troubling defamation decision in Noonan v. Staples.
First Circuit Upends Accepted Understanding of Truth Defense in Defamation Cases [5]

David Ardia reports on the CMLP's first Establishment Clause threat.
UC Berkeley Website on Evolution Sued for Violating Establishment Clause [6]

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Recent threats added to the CMLP database...

Atlanta Humane Society v. Mills [7]
Posted Feb. 19, 2009

Gorman v. Jacobs [8]
Posted Feb. 18, 2009

iXL Enterprises v. Doe [9]
Posted Feb. 18, 2009

Gibson v. Cragslist [10]
Posted Feb. 18, 2009

Caldwell v. Caldwell [11]
Posted Feb. 16, 2009

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Other citizen media law news...

Broad TOS and Broad Anxiety
Info/Law [12] - Thurs. 02/19/09

Bill proposes ISPs, Wi-Fi keep logs for police
CNET [13] - Thurs. 02/19/09

AP Enforcement Action Against Syndicator Survives Dismissal Motion - AP v. All Headline News
Technology & Marketing Law Blog [14] - Thurs. 02/19/09

Monarchs Use 'Lese Majeste' Laws to Silence Online Critics
MediaShift [15] - Wed. 02/18/09

Internet censorship arrives in Italy
Corinna di Gennaro [16] - Mon. 02/16/09

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The full(er) Brief...

"After several false starts, it looks like Congress is finally going to address the issue of 'libel tourism,' an unfortunate practice where foreign plaintiffs pick the jurisdiction with the most draconian libel laws in which to sue.  The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press writes that the anti-'libel tourism' bill introduced last year by Senators Arlen Specter, Joseph Lieberman, and Charles Schumer is back under consideration in the Senate.  (And judging by information on Govtrack.org, the new bill has already made more headway toward becoming law than last year's version.)  Substantively, the bill would prevent courts from recognizing foreign libel judgments that conflict with First Amendment protections for authors.  Further, the bill grants authors who lose foreign libel cases to file a counterclaim in the US to seek damages from the foreign plaintiffs. . . ."
Arthur Bright, Congressional Efforts to Stymie "Libel Tourism" Rev Up [2]

"Yvette Gorzelany, Joanna Obiedzinski, and Paulina Pakos are the latest plaintiffs to seek a big payday from Simon & Schuster over the book Hot Chicks with Douchebags. (Michael Minelli, a 27-year old 'club promoter,' still has a pending suit in Nevada against Simon & Schuster). The three plaintiffs in this suit 'contend[ed] that the use of their photographs in the book Hot Chicks With Douchebags was defamatory.' (Op. at 2). The New Jersey judge flushed the case out of his courtroom -- granting Simon & Schuster’s motion to dismiss in Gorzelany v. Simon & Schuster, BER-L-7775-08 (Bergen Cty. 2009). . . . The Court found that as a matter of law, the book was not about the chicks, and no defamatory meaning could be imputed to any of the photographs. No matter how much vinegar the chicks squirted into their pleadings, no degree of innuendo could make the case a pay day for their douchetastic counsel, sleazy enough to bring such a stinky case. . . ."
Marc Randazza, Hey Douchebag! Your Chicks' Case is Outta Here! [3]

"My colleague Ethan Zuckerman just put up a disturbing post about Kubatana, a prominent Zimbabwean NGO, which saw its site taken down because its hosting provider, Bluehost, got cold feet after it discovered the site contained content from (gasp!) Zimbabwe.  Kubatana, among other things, hosts websites for prominent activist organizations like Women of Zimbabwe Arise.  For the past two years, Kubatana has hosted a joint blog for a wide range of Zimbabwean citizens that has, according to Ethan, 'been one of the key sources of information and perspective for people around the world who follow Zimbabwe, and a critical outlet for Zimbabweans who have few other ways to communicate.' . . . As we've said several times in the past (here and here), if your content might be controversial, you should think about what sort of platform or service will protect your speech most strongly. If you are planning to start a blog, you should carefully consult each hosting provider's terms & conditions to see which host is the most protective of free speech. The section of our legal guide that provides advice on legal issues to consider when getting online should be helpful. . . ."
David Ardia, Another Reminder to Choose Your Hosting Service Carefully [4]

"Last Friday, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upended the generally accepted notion that U.S. defamation law does not impose liability for truthful statements.  In Noonan v. Staples, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Boston held that Alan Noonan, a former Staples employee, may hold the company liable for defamation based on a truthful email a superior sent to employees explaining the reason for Noonan's termination, so long as he can prove that the email was sent with 'actual malevolent intent or ill will.'  The decision interpreted a 1902 Massachusetts statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 92, which states that truth is a defense to libel unless 'actual malice is proved.' . . . Robert Ambrogi, who drew our attention to the case yesterday, characterizes it as 'is the most dangerous libel decision in decades.'  His excellent and thorough analysis of the case is well worth a look.  There's a chance that the First Circuit will review the decision en banc (that is, with all the judges of the First Circuit hearing the case, rather than three), and the case has stark constitutional implications that make it a good candidate for Supreme Court review . . . ."
Sam Bayard, First Circuit Upends Accepted Understanding of Truth Defense in Defamation Cases [5]

"In celebration of the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth (you knew he was born on the same day in 1809 as Abraham Lincoln, right?), I bring you news of our first legal threat directed at an online publisher asserting that a website violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The University of California Museum of Paleontology operates a website entitled Understanding Evolution For Teachers, which is intended as a resource for teaching evolution.  On one of the more than 800 pages on the site, the Museum has a page that attempts to answer the often vexing question of whether evolution and religion are incompatible . . . . In October 2005, Jeanne Caldwell filed a complaint in federal court in California against Roy Caldwell, the Director of the Museum of Paleontology, David Lindberg, Chair of the Integrative Biology Department at UC Berkeley, and Michael Piburn, Program Director for the National Science Foundation (NSF funded some of the work).  Ms. Caldwell claimed that the page at issue impermissibly endorses, advances and proselytizes certain religious beliefs. . . ."
David Ardia,  UC Berkeley Website on Evolution Sued for Violating Establishment Clause [6]