Week of March 6, 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
discusses the use of waivers to stop patients from posting online comments about their doctors.
Do No Harm (But Don't Let Anyone Talk About You) [2]
Sam Bayard updates readers on model Liskula Cohen's effort to unmask an anonymous blogger.
"Skanks in NYC" Blogger Fights Back to Preserve Anonymity [3]
Sam Bayard analyzes a new decision on First Amendment protection for anonymous speech online.
Maryland High Court Joins Growing Consensus Protecting Anonymous Online Speech [4]
Sam Bayard examines the fair use ramifications of Google including advertising along with its news search results.
Do Ads in Google News Search Change the Fair Use Analysis? [5]
Twitter Moves to Federal Court [6]
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Recent threats added to the CMLP database...
State of Wisconsin v. Janzig [7]
Posted Mar. 5, 2009
Woodhull v. Meinel [8]
Posted Mar. 5, 2009
Lesher v. Does [9]
Posted Mar. 5, 2009
Finkel v. Facebook [10]
Posted Mar. 3, 209
Singer v. Centropa [11]
Posted Mar. 3, 2009
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Other citizen media law news...
Dialogue: the future of online obscenity and social networks
Ars Technica [12] - Fri. 03/06/09
Cook County Sheriff Sues Craigslist for Erotic Services Category
Technology & Marketing Law Blog [13] - Thurs. 03/05/09
Lieberman to Courts: What's the Deal with PACER?
Wall Street Journal Law Blog [14] -Tues. 03/03/09
California lawmaker targets Internet mapping sites
The Associated Press [15] - Tues. 03/03/09
Kindle Owners of the World, Unite!
Info/Law [16] - Fri. 02/27/09
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The full(er) Brief...
"The online community reviews everything these days. Be it via stars, thumbs, or free-form comments, the denizens of the Internet are keen to offer their assessments of books, movies, restaurants, and all else out for public consumption and aggregation. Most subjects seem to accept it as a part of offering goods or services to the public. Not the doctors, though. According to an Associated Press report, some doctors, peeved at being subjected to patient reviews, are requiring their patients to sign waiver agreements, in which the patient agrees to refrain from posting online comments about the doctor, his expertise, or his treatment. . . . [W]hile rating doctors might not be terribly useful, requiring patients to agree not to review doctors is profoundly offensive. The doctor-patient relationship is anything but an arms-length contract negotiation. The ill patient has to place a huge amount of trust in the doctor and his/her vastly superior medical knowledge, and assume that the doctor will act in the patient's best interests. For the doctor to impose unreasonable conditions upon the patient, especially conditions demanding the relinquishment of a core constitutional right like freedom of speech, is outrageous. . . ."
Arthur Bright, Do No Harm (But Don't Let Anyone Talk About You) [2]
"Wendy Davis of MediaPost reports that the blogger behind the Skanks in NYC blog has appeared through counsel to challenge model Liskula Cohen's request for discovery from Google regarding his/her identity. Two weeks ago, the anonymous blogger filed a brief arguing that Cohen should not be permitted to unmask him/her because her allegations fail to set out a valid cause of action and therefore fail to meet the heightened standard required by cases such as Dendrite International v. Doe, 775 A.2d 756 (N.J. App. Div. 2001), Doe v. Cahill, 884 A.2d 451 (Del. 2005), and Ottinger v. Non-Party The Journal News, 2008 WL 4375330 (N.J. Sup. Ct. June 27, 2008). . . . [T]he blogger's attorneys do a good job arguing that no reasonable reader of the blog would understand the statements referring to Cohen as a 'skank,' 'skanky,' or 'acting like a ho' to be asserting or implying verifiable facts about her. Their arguments may just get me to change my earlier view of this one as 'a hard call.' . . ."
Sam Bayard, "Skanks in NYC" Blogger Fights Back to Preserve Anonymity [3]
"On Friday, the Court of Appeals of Maryland quashed a subpoena seeking the identity of five anonymous commenters and provided guidance to lower courts regarding what showing an aggrieved plaintiff must make before a court will order a website operator to reveal the identity of an anonymous commenter. In Independent Newspapers, Inc. v. Brodie, the Maryland high court concluded that 'a test requiring notice and opportunity to be heard, coupled with a showing of a prima facie case and the application of a balancing test -- such as the standard set forth in Dendrite, 775 A.2d at 760-61 -- most appropriately balances a speaker's consitutional right to anonymous Internet speech with a plaintiff's right to seek judicial redress from defamatory remarks.' . . . With this ruling, Maryland joins the growing consensus among federal and state courts in other jurisdictions that would-be plaintiffs must make at least a substantial legal and factual showing that his/her claim has merit before a court will unmask an anonymous or pseudonymous Internet speaker. . . ."
Sam Bayard, Maryland High Court Joins Growing Consensus Protecting Anonymous Online Speech [4]
"Last Wednesday, Google began including advertisements in its Google News search results in the United States. The next day, Zachary Rodgers at ClickZ speculated that this move might stir major media companies to sue Google for copyright infringement, and an article in yesterday's New York Times reported that '[s]ome publishers complained' when the search giant added advertising. Google may have licensing arrangements with some of the publishers whose content it reproduces, but I imagine it would rely on fair use to excuse what might otherwise be copyright infringement in the event of a lawsuit (see, e.g., Agence France-Presse's lawsuit against Google in 2005, which ultimately settled when Google agreed to license AFP's content). So the question arises, does including advertisements alongside Google News search results change the fair use analysis? The addition of advertising might change the first of the four statutory fair use factors. . . ."
Sam Bayard, Do Ads in Google News Search Change the Fair Use Analysis? [5]
"The fights over whether blogging ought to be allowed during trials -- and whether it's good journalism -- aren't even over, and a new front has opened in the war over technology and its proper role in coverage of the justice system. Last week, a federal district judge granted permission to a reporter from the Wichita Eagle to report on a trial using Twitter, the mini social network that allows users to shout out their whereabouts -- and anything else they can fit in a 140-character post -- quickly and easily. The judge's OK -- he told defense attorneys, 'Twitter is on' -- prompted news coverage from the AP and elsewhere, but it may strike some reporters and legal observers as less of an OMG moment, and closer to something like, 'yeah, so?' After all, one of the biggest Internet-related trials of the year (albeit in Sweden), so far, has been relentlessly covered by all kinds of folks on Twitter. . . . No suprise then, that the Twitter news has found a following in the press (despite Twitter already making inroads in state court). Some defense attorneys may worry that the live feeds will be prejudicial should a juror come across them, but that's likely to be a problem better managed by judges' admonishments that blanket bans on reporters' (or others') use of technology. . . ."
Michael Lindenberger, Twitter Moves to Federal Court [6]
