Week of July 17, 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.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The latest from the Citizen Media Law Project blog...

Lee Baker has the latest on UK libel law run amuck.
Warning: UK Libel Law May be Hazardous to Your Health [2]

Sam Bayard jumps into the TechCrunch v. Twitter fray.
First Amendment Protects TechCrunch's Publication of (Some) Hacked Twitter Documents [3]

Andrew Moshirnia reports on the latest invasion of the Twitter snatchers.
Brandjacking on Social Networks: Twitter, Malicious Ghost Writing, and Corporate Sabotage [4]

Sam Bayard reports on yet another case of a cease-and-desist letter gone wrong.
The Guinness World Record for Trademark Fail [5]

Kimberley Isbell asks the burning question that may be keeping Google executives up at night.
Who Put the "World" in "World Wide Web," Anyway? [6]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Recent threats added to the CMLP database...

24grille v. TripAdvisor.com [7]
Posted July 17th, 2009

Sethi v. TechCrunch [8]
Posted July 16th, 2009

Guinness World Records v. FAIL Blog [9]
Posted July 15th, 2009

Hillstone Restaurant Group v. Pietrylo [10]
Posted July 13th, 2009

YP.Net v. StockLemon [11]
Posted July 13th, 2009

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Other citizen media law news...

Goldman Settles Dispute With Blogger
MediaPost [12] - Fri. 07/17/09

Black officers group sues Philly PD over Web site
The Washington Post [13] - Thurs. 07/16/09

Italian bloggers strike
GlobalPost [14] - Thurs. 07/16/09

Now the FCC cares about journalism
BuzzMachine [15] - Tues. 07/14/09

Stop cyberbullying with education, not new law
CNET [16] - Tues. 07/14/09

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The full(er) Brief...

"It seems that the American Congress is not the only group enraged by England's plaintiff-friendly libel laws. Sense About Science, a British charity that promotes public understanding of science, is lobbying the British Parliament to amend its libel laws in a campaign called Keep Libel Laws Out of Science. The impetus for the campaign is a recent court ruling against Simon Singh, co-author of the book Trick or Treatment?, based on an article he wrote for the Guardian. According to a later article in the Guardian summarizing Singh's legal predicament (the original article has been removed, but an archived copy can be found here), Singh describes claims by chiropractors that they 'can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying' as 'bogus' and without 'a jot of evidence,' and criticizes the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) for 'happily promot[ing]' them. The BCA sued Singh for libel, and Justice Eady of the British High Court, in a preliminary hearing, essentially ruled that 'by the mere use of the word "bogus" Simon Singh was stating that, as a matter of fact, the BCA were being consciously dishonest in promoting chiropractic for those children's ailments' (emphasis in original). . . . While Singh's article is certainly not a paragon of balanced - or even very good - writing, it is clearly an expression of his opinion on the shortcomings of chiropractic treatment, and would almost certainly be protected by the First Amendment were it to have been written and published in the United States. . . ."
Lee Baker, Warning: UK Libel Law May be Hazardous to Your Health [2]

"There's an interesting debate afoot about TechCrunch's decision to publish selected documents it received from someone who hacked into the email accounts of Twitter CEO Evan Williams and other Twitter employees. There's already been some good coverage of the journalism ethics side of the debate, but I wanted to weigh in with some detail on what U.S. law has to say about the situation. Is it legal for TechCrunch to publish hacked documents? As with most questions worth asking a lawyer, it depends. It depends largely on whether the content of any particular published document is of legitimate concern to the public. You are probably familiar with the facts already. TechCrunch received an email from 'Hacker Croll' with a zip-file containing hundreds of Twitter's confidential corporate documents. According to the New York Times Bits Blog, 'the hacker apparently broke into the Internet accounts of various Twitter employees, including Evan Williams, Twitter's chief executive, as well as Mr. Williams's wife, who does not work for Twitter, and two Twitter employees.' The 310 stolen documents include corporate financial projections, confidential contracts with Twitter business partners, executive meeting notes, and private information pertaining to Twitter employees, such as meal preferences, calendars, and phone logs. After announcing its receipt of the documents and its intention to release some of them, TechCrunch published an internal Twitter financial forecast from February 2009 (predicting its first revenue in Q3 2009 and 1 billion users in 2013, although Twitter says it wasn't an official document and is no longer accurate), as well as a pitch for a Twitter TV reality show. French blogger Korben also received the hacked documents, but has published very little out of what he says is respect for Twitter and Mr. Williams. So what are the legal issues here? As I see it (and I'm probably missing something in my haste to get a post up), TechCrunch faces three possible legal claims. . . ."
Sam Bayard, First Amendment Protects TechCrunch's Publication of (Some) Hacked Twitter Documents [3]

"It seems all I can write about these days is digital doppelgangers. I've written about employers engaged in Facebook hijacking and MySpace lurking. Today, a story of brandjacking through Twitter sabotage rounds out the cyber-possession trilogy. Ghost writing on Twitter is nothing new. When you tweet with 50 Cent or Britney, you are communicating with a publicist. This just seems to come with the territory of celebrity communication. Maybe that is why most people derided the story of Tony LaRussa' s suit against Twitter in reaction to a malicious ghost-tweeter. I'm sure La Russa, who has since dropped his suit against Twitter, wishes he had never brought the matter to the attention of the mainstream media. . . . But now it seems, like so many other great pastimes, that Twitter impersonation has gone corporate. In January, a Twitter account was set up for @TannerFriedman, a PR Firm based in Michigan. Problem was, the good folks at Tanner Friedman had no idea the account even existed. And when the PR-firm employees (experts at brand management) finally realized two months later that someone was posing as the firm and disseminating malicious tweets, they asked Twitter to take down the account. Ultimately, Tanner Friedman sued the John Doe responsible for @TannerFriendman and subpoenaed Twitter for the copycat saboteur's user information. The court expedited the request, and oddity of oddities, Tanner Friedman now controls @TannerFriedman. Here's where things get even more interesting. Though Doe registered his account through a disposable email address, he did not mask his IP address, 65.44.161.222. And who owns that address, according to Detriot News and registry records? Why, the rival PR-firm Marx Layne, where the eponymous Tanner and Friedman once worked. . . ."
Andrew Moshirnia, Brandjacking on Social Networks: Twitter, Malicious Ghost Writing, and Corporate Sabotage [4]

"As if anyone needed more proof that shooting off an ill-conceived cease-and-desist letter is a bad PR move, Techdirt points us to a recent gem. The hilarious FAIL Blog publishes user-submitted photos and videos documenting various mishaps, incongruous images, and other examples of human fallibility, which it refers to as 'fails.' Last week, it published 'Record Breaking Fail,' which showed a screenshot from the Guinness World Records website for the entry 'most individuals killed in a terrorist attack.' The 'fail' captured by the screenshot was a link on the page -- apparently part of the site's template -- encouraging readers to 'break this record.' It seems that the good people at GWR didn't appreciate the humor or view the posting as a reminder to fix their website goof. Instead, in-house counsel for GWR sent an email to FAIL Blog that may qualify as one of the most bogus trademark C&Ds of all time. The email claimed that FAIL Blog's posting infringed GWR's trademark rights because its 'star and pedestal' logo appeared in the screenshot. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the technical term for this kind of argument is 'hogswallop.' Trademark infringement requires consumer confusion, something GWR would never in a million years be able to show. U.S. law also recognizes the defense of trademark fair use and other defenses based on free speech principles. Happily, the folks at FAIL Blog turned the whole affair into a something of a PR teaching moment. . . ."
Sam Bayard, The Guinness World Record for Trademark Fail [5]

"Back in May, Eric Robinson explained why it's always a good idea to know your audience before setting pen to paper. But in the networked online world, how do you determine who your audience is? As Jonathan Zittrain has noted, the history of the Internet is riddled with examples of content gone viral, spreading to the four corners of the Internet in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately, international humiliation is not the only risk when the Internet's eyes all turn towards you. Most online publishers welcome the idea of having their content viewed by millions of people around the world. After all, if a post goes up on the Internet but nobody reads it, does it make a sound? Yet more than one American company has had occasion to lament the 'world' in the 'world wide web.' Yahoo! first learned the hard lesson in international relations back during the Jurassic Period of the Internet, when a French court handed down a ruling requiring Yahoo! to block the sale of Nazi memorabilia to French citizens through its US website. The Ninth Circuit later rebuffed an attempt by Yahoo! to insulate itself from the French ruling by invoking the First Amendment. . . . The latest company to find itself on the wrong side of a foreign legal system is Google. In a disturbing twist, four of Google's executives are facing criminal prosecution in Italy over the distribution on YouTube of a video depicting Italian schoolboys taunting a boy with Downs Syndrome. . . ."
Kimberley Isbell, Who Put the "World" in "World Wide Web," Anyway? [6]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Join the conversation...

Can't get enough of the Citizen Media Law Project?  Join us on Twitter [17], Facebook [18], and YouTube [19]!