We're pleased to announce that we have updated the CMLP Legal Guide on the District of Columbia's anti-SLAPP law to incorporate its brand new anti-SLAPP statute that came into effect on March 31, 2011.  A SLAPP, or "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation," is a lawsuit filed in retaliation for speaking out on a public issue or controversy.

There's more than a hint of theatrics in the draft PROTECT IP bill (pdf, via dontcensortheinternet ) that has emerged as son-of-COICA, starting with the ungainly acronym of a name. Given its roots in the entertainment industry, that low drama comes as no surprise. Each section name is worse than the last: "Eliminating the Financial Incentive to Steal Intellectual Property Online" (Sec. 4) gives way to "Voluntary action for Taking Action Against Websites Stealing American Intellectual Property" (Sec. 5).

Techdirt gives a good overview of the bill, so I'll just pick some details:

• Infringing activities. In defining "infringing activities," the draft explicitly includes circumvention devices ("offering goods or services in violation of section 1201 of title 17"), as well as copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting. Yet that definition also brackets the possibility of "no [substantial/significant] use other than ...." Substantial could incorporate the "merely capable of substantial non-infringing use" test of Betamax.
• Blocking non-domestic sites. Sec. 3 gives the Attorney General a right of action over "nondomestic domain names", including the right to demand remedies from (A) domain name system server operators, (B) financial transaction providers, (C), Internet advertising services, and (D) "an interactive computer service (def. from 230(f)) shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures ... to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order, or a hypertext link to such Internet site."

And boom goes the dynamite. Last month I wrote about the looming disaster that is COICA – the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act.  Thanks to a brewing fight between a United States government agency and web advocate and Firefox distributor Mozilla, we're getting a preview of the conflicts that COICA would cause if enacted.

The regulation of commercial speech on social media sites continues to increase. In late March, a federal court in California held that Facebook postings fit within the definition of "commercial electronic mail message" under the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act ("CAN-SPAM Act;" 15 U.S.C. § 7701, et seq.).

I'm excited to welcome Jeff Hermes, the Citizen Media Law Project's new Assistant Director.

Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black. - Henry Ford

A few days ago, I attended oral arguments before the First Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Joel Tenenbaum, a graduate student being sued by various record labels for sharing music files via a peer-to-peer service over the Internet (Sony v. Tenenbaum, docket available here).  I’ve already written up some of my thoughts about the possible outcome of Joel’s lawsuit over at my regular blog, Legally Sociable.

Here, I’d like to expand my analysis somewhat to cover Tenenbaum’s broader implications.  Many CMLP blog readers may be asking themselves, “So what?  What could swapping MP3’s on the Internet possibly have to do with the activities of citizen journalists?”

Under an ideal intellectual property regime, the answer would doubtless be “very little.”  Non-commercial use of music for personal entertainment bears little logical resemblance to news reporting, analysis, and advocacy.  One might reasonably imagine that IP law treats P2P music downloading differently from blogging about the news.

Unfortunately, in the real world, the law ends up treating blogging almost exactly like file sharing because both activities primarily fall within the purview of copyright law.  Moreover, 17 U.S.C. § 504(c) provides extremely flexible statutory penalties “as the court considers just.”

The U.S.