Blogs

Texas Judge Orders 178 Anonymous "John Does" Who Posted on Topix Be Revealed

Once again, the right to anonymous speech is being tested, this time in Texas, where a judge has ordered news portal Topix.com to reveal the identities of 178 forum posters accused of defaming a Texas attorney and his wife.

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Pennsylvania Student Sent to Jail For Lampooning Assistant Principal on MySpace

The Associated Press is reporting that two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.

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Neuwirth v. Silverstein: California Appellate Court Reverses Ruling Granting Motion to Strike

On Monday, a California appellate court reversed a trial court that had granted Richard Silverstein and Joel Beinin's motion to strike

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Juicy Campus Dies - Holmes' Posse Rejoices

Juicy Campus -- often the target of anti-free-speech types in higher education has died. And I am glad.

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Citizen Journalist's Guide to Open Government

J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism at American University's School of Communication, just announced the launch of "The Citizen Journalist’s Guide to Open Government," an extensive multimedia module to help citizen media creators understan

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Citizen Media Law Project is Hiring a Staff Attorney

Are you a lawyer interested in dealing with emerging legal issues relating to the intersection of law, journalism, and new media on the Internet?  Would you like to help online journalism and new media ventures meet their legal needs?  Do you want a stimulating yet laid back work environment?

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Egyptian Security Police Detain Blogger and Graduate Student Philip Rizk

Reuters, the LA Times, and the International Herald Tribune report that Egyptian state security police detained blogger Philip Rizk on Friday night, when he was returning to Cairo after a march

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Juicy No More

You know the economy's bad when even college rumor-mongering isn't making a profit any more.  That's right, JuicyCampus.com, the website dedicated to anonymously posted collegiate gossip, has closed up shop.  In a post announcing the shutdown, Matt Ivester, the founder and CEO, put the blame on "these historically difficult economic times,&q

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CMLP Seeking Law Student Interns

Are you a law student interested in working on challenging legal issues relating to online speech and non-traditional journalism?  Are you looking for media and cyberlaw experience? Do you want to get involved with the Berkman Center community?  

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Chicago Developer Shovels Out Subpoenas by the Bucketful Over Wilson Yard Redevelopment

We are still trying to get to the bottom of this one, but it appears that a real estate developer in Chicago has subpoenaed information from four websites that have criticized efforts to redevelop Wilson Yard in downtown Chicago.  The redevelopment work is the subject of a lawsuit filed in Decembe

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Live-blogging journalism? You betcha. It's just not always good journalism.

As a young journalist, I remember listening with interest to colleagues recounting long-ago fights for the right to bring cameras into the court room. And while that battle hasn't been won everywhere, it appears nevertheless to be giving way to a new wave of concerns.

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Live Blogging in the Courtroom, Is It Journalism?

One of the recurring themes I've discovered in my reading assignments for law school is that judges are, by and large, not technologically savvy.  Far from it, in fact.  Thus, it was of great interest to me to find an ABA Journal article about U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett, who recently allowed a journalist for the Cedar Rapids Gazette to blog live during the a tax fraud trial in his Sioux City, Iowa, court.

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Progress Illinois' YouTube Channel Reinstated After Fox Declines to Sue

Late last week, YouTube reinstated Progress Illinois' YouTube channel after Fox Television declined to sue for copyright infringement within the 10 day window prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

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California Anti-SLAPP Project Takes Up Case for Yelp and Parents Sued Over Negative Dentist Review

On January 21, the California Anti-SLAPP Project (CASP) filed a special motion to strike the complaint of Yvonne Wong, a pediatric dentist who sued Yelp! Inc. and two parents based on a negative review of her services the parents posted on Yelp

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Virginia Blogger Targeted With Outrageous Subpoena

In perhaps the most blatant misuse of the subpoena power we've seen since the subpoena served on Kathleen Seidel of Neurodiversity last March, a lawyer for Thomas Garrett of Virginia has served a patently overbroad subpoena on blogger Waldo Jaquith, who publishes cvillenews.com, a community news blog about Charlottesville, Virginia. 

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Breaking News: Virgin America Sues Blog Over Parody Ad

Earlier this week, California-based airline Virgin America filed a six-count complaint against the publisher and editors of Adrants, a blog focused on the advertising industry, after they published a post that was paired with a fake ad containing the Virgin logo and the statement, "The Hudson Crash: Just One More Reason to Fly Virgin."  The post has since been removed, but a cached version is available

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Another Victory for the "Douchebags"

A federal district court in Connecticut has granted qualified immunity to the high school principal and the school district superintendent who punished a student for calling school administrators "douchebags" on her blog.  Doninger v. Niehoff, No. 3:07-cv-1129 (D. Conn. filed Jan.

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Thoughts on the Value of Journalism in the Wake of GateHouse v. New York Times Settlement

The fallout from the GateHouse v. New York Times settlement, anticlimactic as it was, has been fascinating, and deliciously exhaustive in the way that only Internet-based discussions of Internet-related issues can be.

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Judge Orders Google to Notify "Skanks in NYC" Blogger of Discovery Request

Wendy Davis of MediaPost reports that the blogger behind the Skanks in NYC blog will keep his/her identity secret for another four weeks.  In a hearing yesterday in New York Supreme Court, Judge Joan Madden refused to rule on model Li

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