Week of April 30, 2010 [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...

Eric Robinson looks at what happens when the blogger gets free clothes.
FTC Endorsement Rules Get Their First Workout [2]

Helen Fu asks, who owns the data?
Government Data: This Data Was Made for You and Me? [3]

Eric Robinson notes that concerns over cloud privacy may not be just a pie in the sky.
Search Warrants in the Sky: FBI Collects Info from Google Docs [4]

Sam Bayard jumps into the fray over the recent iPhone raid.
Police Seize Gizmodo Reporter's Computers Over iPhone 4 Leak [5]

CMLP Staff serves up hours of viewing enjoyment from our recent conference.
A Video Recap of CMLP's April 9th Conference, Journalism's Digital Transition [6]

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Recent threats added to the CMLP database...

Warranty Automotive Services v. Does [7]
Posted Apr. 29, 2010

Lerner v. GalaxyFacts [8]
Posted Apr. 28, 2010

Blackmer v. Hanson [9]
Posted Apr. 28, 2010

Morrone v. The Journal News [10]
Posted Apr. 28, 2010

Michael Mann v No Cap and Trade, Minnesotans for Global Warming [11]
Posted Apr. 26, 2010

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Other citizen media law news...

After reporter's subpoena, critics call Obama's leak-plugging efforts Bush-like
The Washington Post [12] - Fri. 4/30/10 

The cloud and the future of the Fourth Amendment
ArsTechnica [13] - Tue. 4/27/10

Senators tell Facebook: tighten privacy policy
Yahoo! News [14] - Tue. 4/27/10 

Climategate scientist threatens lawsuit over ‘Hide the Decline' YouTube video
Examiner.com [15] - Tue. 4/27/10 

Twitter Taking Down Tweets Over Bogus DMCA Claims
TechDirt [16] - Mon. 4/26/10

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The full(er) Brief...

"The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it has completed its first investigation under the 'blog-ola' rules it adopted last year, which require bloggers and other social media posters who receive a free or discounted product or service to disclose the freebie in their reviews or commentary about the product or service, or face the possibility of an FTC enforcement action. . . . In the end, the FTC decided not to take any action against Ann Taylor (decision letter), whose Loft division (formerly Ann Taylor Loft) offered gifts to bloggers who attended a January 26 'exclusive blogger preview' of the chain's summer 2010 line. . . . But while the FTC took no action against Loft or the bloggers who covered the event, it is clear that the Commission is keeping an eye out for blatant offers to bloggers and other social media posters in return for coverage. . . ."
Eric Robinson, FTC Endorsement Rules Get Their First Workout [2]

"In March, Google launched its Public Data Explorer, expanding upon its public data search feature that's been around since last spring. Earlier this month, Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism announced a joint degree program to train tech-savvy journalists. It looks like computer assisted reporting is finally going mainstream and moving past its ‘hacker journalist' label and identity crisis. That's all well and good, but having all those programmer journalists looking for access to public data brings to the forefront questions about who owns public records and who has the right to put limits on their use. Oklahoma, for instance, brought in $65 million in the last five years from selling data, and the state legislature has proposed a law to limit the availability of data for such public records requests. Journalists can run into frustrations when data they're relying upon become unavailable. Sometimes the data feeds are taken down because repeated requests become too burdensome for the public agency, which is what Crimespotting in Oakland encountered before they worked it out with the Oakland Police Department. The public agency may also put limits on how the data are used, or require a licensing fee. Another potential hurdle is a dispute over who owns the data, particularly when a third party supplies the government entity with the data. . . ."
Helen Fu, Government Data: This Data Was Made for You and Me? [3]

"Wired recently reported on a search warrant the FBI served on Google last year to retrieve documents stored on the Google Docs ‘cloud' word-processing service, in an investigation of a company named Pulse Marketing. The company allegedly sent millions of spam emails promoting and offering to sell acai berry, and had established a system to create multiple Yahoo and Gmail email addresses to send the spam. . . . Service of subpoenas and search warrants on email providers are now routine, but the Google Docs warrant appears to be the first in which the information sought resided in documents stored in ‘the cloud,' a short-hand term for creating, editing and storing files online, rather than on an individual users' computers. . . . The current federal statute on the issue, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), 18 U.S.C. § 2510, et seq., basically extended the rules regarding government access to older technologies like the telephone (e.g., wiretapping) to electronic communications. . . . [T]he basic, underlying statute was passed in 1986, before the advent and widespread use of email, text messaging, social networking websites, and the myriad other means of modern communications. As others have explained at length, ECPA creates an exceedingly dense and confusing statutory framework, and relies on a series of archaic distinctions, such as whether a communication is ‘stored' or ‘in transit.' This complexity creates uncertainty about what showing law enforcement has to make in order to access user materials stored in the cloud. Is a search warrant, a subpoena, or an informal request required? Under what circumstances can service providers voluntarily cooperate with law enforcement? . . ."
Eric Robinson, Search Warrants in the Sky: FBI Collects Info from Google Docs [4]

"Gizmodo announced this afternoon that California police seized computers and servers from the home of its reporter/editor Jason Chen on Friday night. They've posted the search warrant, Gawker C.O.O. Gaby Darbyshire's letter to the police disputing the legality of the seizure, and Chen's first-hand account of what happened. . . . As Darbyshire points out in her letter to Detective Broad, § 1524(g) of the California Penal Code says: ‘No warrant shall issue for any item or items described in Section 1070 of the Evidence Code.' California Evidence Code § 1070 is one of the operative provisions of the California shield law. It says that a person ‘connected with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication' cannot be held in contempt for failing to disclose the identity of a source or unpublished information obtained in the course of newsgathering. The search warrant pretty clearly targets unpublished information of this sort and the identity of Chen's source. Gawker's chief Nick Denton tweeted this afternoon, saying that the case raises the issue of whether ‘bloggers count as journalists.' Ordinarily, Denton would be quite right, but in California there is relatively clear precedent that online journalists like Chen are covered by the shield law. . . . Ergo, the police likely violated California law. (Not to mention a potential issue under the federal Privacy Protection Act; but here it looks like the search might fit an exception.) The only potential issue I see under California law is whether § 1524(g)'s prohibition is subject to an exception where the journalist himself/herself is alleged to have committed a crime. . . ."
Sam Bayard, Police Seize Gizmodo Reporter's Computers Over iPhone 4 Leak [5]

"On April 9, 2010, the Citizen Media Law Project and the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard Law School hosted a one-day symposium and CLE program, ‘Journalism's Digital Transition: Unique Legal Challenges and Opportunities.' The event celebrated the launch of the Online Media Legal Network (OMLN), a legal referral service that connects qualifying online journalism ventures and digital media creators with lawyers willing to provide legal services on a pro bono or reduced-fee basis. We were extremely pleased with the conference, which brought together a great mix of lawyers, academics, journalists, and students. Both the presenters and audience really engaged with the topics and shared many helpful insights. If you missed it, you can catch up by watching the videos below. The CLE materials and agenda from the day are also available online. . . ."
CMLP Staff, A Video Recap of CMLP's April 9th Conference, Journalism's Digital Transition [6]

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