Blogs

Documenting Your Vote: California Election Laws

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The CMLP is currently doing research on the state laws regulating activities at polling places on Election Day.  Our specific focus is on laws that impact voters' ability to document their own voting experiences through video and still photography, as well as their ability to carry out other newsgathering functions, such as interviewing other voters outside of polling places.  In this post, I'll look at how California's election laws affect these activities.

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Skype Cannot be Trusted, Period

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As Salon notes in "Skype sells out to China," the eBay-owned service has collaborated with a Chinese company to enable spying on the allegedly encrypted messages that Skype users send each other to and from, and within, China. This disgusting sellout should surprise no one.

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Big Media Challenges Constitutionality of Minnesota Polling Restriction

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ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and the Associated Press have joined forces to challenge a Minnesota statute that forbids non-voters to stand within 100 feet of the entrance to a polling place on election day.  In their complaint, the media companies allege that this restriction, as applied to their planned exit polling activities, violates the First Amendment.

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YouTube Anti-Scientology Takedowns and Putbacks

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports on some good news, and bit of bad news, regarding the blizzard of DMCA takedown notices sent to YouTube on behalf of the Church of Scientology.

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Marc Randazza: First Amendment Juggernaut

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My good friend Marc Randazza has given me the green light on an exciting piece of news.  On September 11, 2008, Florida Circuit Court Judge George Sprinkle entered a default judgment in favor of Randazza's client Larry Giles, operator of the Veranda Park News, an online newspaper offering observations and commentary on events and aesthetic issues in Giles's development community.  The court

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New Insurance Program for Bloggers Offered by the Media Bloggers Association

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Here is a simple, but often ignored, truth: if you publish online, whether it's a news article, blog post, podcast, video, or even a user comment, you open yourself up to potential legal liability.  It doesn't matter whether you are a professional journalist, hockey-mom, or an obscure blogger, if you post it, you'll need to be prepared for the legal consequences. 

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CMLP Joins Amicus Brief in Support of BlockShopper.com

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Last Friday, the Citizen Media Law Project joined Public Citizen, EFF, and Public Knowledge in filing an amici curiae brief in support of BlockShopper.com's

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CMLP Teams Up With NewsU to Launch Online Media Law Course

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We're pleased to announce that News University launched its Online Media Law course today.  The course is specifically designed for individuals and journalists engaged in online publishing, and it covers three important areas of media law -- defamation, privacy, and copyright. The course is free.

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Virginia Supreme Court: State Anti-Spam Law is Unconstitutional

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It looks like Jeremy Jaynes, the first person in the United States to be convicted of a felony for spamming, is going to get a free pass, thanks to a decision handed down by the Virginia Supreme Court last week striking down Virginia's anti-spam law, Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-152.3:1, on First Amendment grounds. 

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YouTube Changes Guidelines, Senator Lieberman Gets Partial Victory on Terrorist Videos

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Taking full advantage of the seventh anniversary of 9/11, YouTube announced changes to its community guidelines last week, prohibiting the upload of videos inciting others to commit violent acts.  The change comes several months after Senator Joe Lieberman pressured YouTube to remove videos not only inciting violence, but also content "that can be readily identified as produced by Al-Qaeda or another [Foreign Terrorist Organization]," through logos such as these:

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Libel Tourism: A First Amendment Holiday

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Over the past few months, I've blogged several times (see here and here) about the proposed federal Free Speech Protection Act of 2008, which would allow a federal court to enjoin the enforcement in the United States of a foreign libel judgment if the speech at issue would not constitute defamati

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Jones Day Gets Trademark Law Wrong, Squelches Legitimate Reporting

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Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen published a fantastic post on Friday about big law firm Jones Day's lawsuit against BlockShopper.com, an online real estate news website covering Chicago, South Florida, Las Vegas, and St.

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Print-on-Demand Service BookSurge Deemed Not To Be a "Publisher"

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Back in July, a federal court in Maine ruled that BookSurge, a print-on-demand service owned by Amazon.com, was not liable for defamatory statements contained in a book it "published" on behalf of one of its clients.  Sandler v. Calcagni, 2008 WL 2761892 (D. Me.

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Boston City Council: What Are They Hiding?

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Journalism professor Dan Kennedy has a great post today at Media Nation about the Boston City Council's review of an 80-page report that it commissioned urging the state legislature to exempt it from the Massachusetts open meetings laws.

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Judge Rejects Fair Use Defense in Harry Potter Lexicon Case, J.K. Rowling Recovers Her Plums

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In a long-awaited decision in the case of Rowling v. RDR Books, a federal judge in New York has ruled in favor of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros.

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Publishing Personal and Private Information: Understanding Your Legal Risks

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When you publish information about someone without permission, especially personal or private information, you potentially expose yourself to legal liability even if your portrayal is factually accurate. While you should keep this potential liability in mind, the law generally gives online publishers quite a bit of breathing space to report and comment on matters of legitimate public concern, even when the person being discussed objects to the coverage.

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