Blogs

Paving Hell: ACTA Encourages Oppression from Friend and Foe Alike

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The drafting of the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA) isn’t going so well.

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Using the Internet During Trial: What About Judges?

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Over the past year, we've watched the courts struggle with Internet and social media use involving a variety of actors.

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Goldsmith and Lessig: ACTA Raises "Serious Constitutional Questions"

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Harvard Law School professors Jack Goldsmith and Lawrence Lessig published an opinion piece today in the Washington Post, in which they lay out the serious constitutional concerns surrounding the Obama administration's plan to adopt ACTA as a "sole executive agreement" that requires only the president's approval. It's well worth a read.

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Calling Out Former Porn Stars? Beware of '2257 Regs'

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Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton made a career for himself by taking shots at the Hollywood elite and celebs du jour.

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Barclays v. TheFlyOnTheWall.com: Hot News Doctrine Alive and Kicking; Will News Aggregators Be Next?

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In 2003, prolific legal scholar and 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner published a law review article entitled "Misappropriation: A Dirge," which discussed—among other things—the continued viability of &quo

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I Feel Like I’m Taking Crazy Pills: EU’s Latest ACTA Proposal Outlaws the Internet

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Sometimes a story is so insane that you can’t help but wonder if someone has slipped you some crazy pills.  See, for example, the Google prosecution in Italy.

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"Fred Ross" Files Anti-SLAPP Motion Against Patterson City Attorney

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A couple of weeks ago, my good friend and all-around First Amendment bad ass Marc Randazza called on a bunch of law bloggers to make March "Anti-SLAPP Month" in honor of Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN)’s propos

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Keeping Online Speech Outside the Schoolhouse Gate

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A freshman at Oak Grove High School in Missouri used Facebook last month to vent about another student: "Wow, [expletive] alert," wrote Megan Wisemore.

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Fake Giraffe Update: Louisiana Court Sides With Satirical Website

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Nicholas Brilleaux, publisher of Hammond Action News, got a big victory yesterday when a Louisiana judge dissolved an order prohibiting him from posting a satirical news story about a fictional giraffe attack on his blog.

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Science Journalist Simon Singh Drops Guardian Column to Fight Libel Suit Full-Time

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Science journalist Simon Singh announced on Friday that he is giving up his Guardian column to devote his time and energy to fighting the British Chiropractic Association's libel lawsuit against him and to campaigning for libel reform in the United Kingdom. 

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Indian Court Rules Against Blanket Prohibition on Sexually Themed Websites

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An Indian NGO filed a petition before the Bombay High Court seeking a blanket prohibition on websites that display any "material pertaining to sex." The justification for the proposed ban was that this material "is harmful to the youth of this country in their formative years." (Op. at 1).

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The Revolution Will Be Tweeted, Hopes the U.S.

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Anyone who followed the Green Movement protests in Iran is well aware of the importance of social media to the protesters.  Without Twitter, photo sharing, and other key information-sharing technologies, it's hard to believe that the protests would ever have materialized, let alone in such numbers that the Iranian government couldn't discretely crush them.  (By the way, if you're interested in seeing the social media at work in the protests, I'd highly recommend checking out Andrew Sullivan's blog The Daily Dis

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NYU Law Professor Charged With Criminal Libel in French Court for Refusing to Take Down Critical Book Review

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Many others already have

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The Persian Version: Why Support for ACTA Undermines U.S. Promotion of Internet Freedom

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"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it . . ." –Definition of Doublethink from 1984, George Orwell

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OMLN's Spring Conference: Journalism's Digital Transition

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We're pleased to announce that, on Friday April 9, 2010, the Citizen Media Law Project and Berkman's Cyberlaw Clinic are hosting a conference at Harvard Law School to celebrate the launch of the Online Media Legal Network (OMLN)

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Supreme Court Grants Cert. in Snyder v. Phelps

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The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Snyder v. Phelps, the funeral picketing "God Hates Fags" case involving the kooky Phelpsian Westboro Baptist Church.  Albert Snyder, the father of a U.S.

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Candidate Joe Walsh vs. Rocker Joe Walsh: A DMCA Knockout

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After a month of snarky letter and email exchanges, Republican U.S. Congressional candidate Joe Walsh recently removed a campaign video from his website that used a song by the Eagles band member also named Joe Walsh.

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Pennsylvania Court Refuses to Unmask News Website Commenters

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Thomas O'Toole at TechLaw points us to an anonymous speech decision issued last week by a federal court in Pennsylvania.  In McVicker v.

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Could a National Anti SLAPP Law be on the Horizon?

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Congressman Steve Cohen, D-TN is our First Amendment Bad Ass of the week.

Mr. Cohen introduced The Citizen Participation Act, a federal anti-slapp bill. The bill describes its purpose as follows:

To protect first amendment rights of petition and free speech by preventing States and the United States from allowing meritless lawsuits arising from acts in furtherance of those rights, commonly called ‘‘SLAPPs’’, and for other purposes.

It is about time.

SLAPP suits are all-too common and are a scourge on our legal landscape. Personally, they have been good for me, as I earn a significant income by defending these kinds of suits, but as much as I love money, I love free speech more (and I'm sure that I could sell that time elsewhere). A SLAPP suit is a "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation." In other words, it is a lawsuit that some hosebag files against a critic -- not because he hopes to win anything, but because the mere filing of the suit is punishment enough for the critic. Lawsuits are expensive, and when a rich douchebag has plenty of money to spend on attorneys's fees, he can afford to sue a couple of critics, thus scaring the bejesus out of anyone else who might criticize him.

The Public Participation Project had this to say about SLAPPS:

Regardless of who is speaking and who is suing, everyone is losing when SLAPPs are allowed to continue. These meritless lawsuits clog the courts, waste resources and contribute to a general culture of litigousness. Instead of answering speech with speech, SLAPP filers answer speech with subpoenas and spurious claims.

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