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Citizen Media Law Project

Legal training and resources to protect free online speech. Advocacy for citizen participation in online media.
By Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Center for Citizen Media

Post Frequency: 3.9/day

Last Entry: July 20, 2010 at 10:11:43

You Have Questions? CMLP Has (Tools to Help You Find) Answers.

Posted on October 29, 2009
"How do I get media liability insurance?" It's a question we hear a lot here at CMLP. A lot has been written about why bloggers and other citizen journalists should consider obtaining insurance to protect themselves against liability for their online activities...

It's Election Time Again: CMLP Announces Updated Guide to Newsgathering at the Polls

Posted on October 28, 2009
Voters head to the polls again on November 3 to cast their ballots in mayoral, city council, and even a handful of gubernatorial elections. In addition, there are some important ballot measures up for consideration, like the referendum in Maine seeking repeal of the state's newly enacted statute legalizing same-sex marriage...

For Once, Illinois Federal Judge Lets 'Em Roll: And Gets Steamrolled

Posted on September 30, 2009
UPDATE: Judge Frank Easterbrook, chief judge of the 7th Circuit, has issued an opinion chiding Federal District Judge Joe Billy McDade for allowing cameras into a consent decree hearing in a school discrimination case, saying that it violated a 1996 resolution of the 7th Circuit Judicial Council adopting the national Judicial Council's ban on cameras, discussed below...

I Can Clearly See You?re Nuts: ACORN?s Insane Civil Suit

Posted on September 29, 2009
I'm pretty sure I can struggle my way out. First I'll just reach in and pull my legs out, now I'll pull my arms out with my face. ? Homer J. Simpson, The Simpsons, Bart Gets An Elephant, 1F15 Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! ...

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Senate Cuts Citizen Bloggers From Federal Shield Bill

Posted on September 28, 2009
For citizen journalists, the federal shield law front was looking good for a while. Although the House of Representatives version of the bill, passed in April, only offered a shield to professional bloggers, the Senate version didn't differentiate between the pros and the amateurs...

And You Thought Today's Google Outage Was Bad...

Posted on September 24, 2009
Twitter has been awash today in the typical gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes that accompanies any Gmail outage, no matter how short the duration. If yesterday's court ruling holds, however, one unlucky Gmail user may wake up one morning soon to an even worse fate...

Anthropomorphizing Intrusion: Google Street View and the Armies of Cute

Posted on September 24, 2009
A basic lesson of history: a spoonful of cute helps the social medicine go down. Bert the Turtle prepared us for Global Thermo-Nuclear War. Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck helped us hate the Nazis and (briefly) like Stalin. Now Google has harnessed the power of cute to sell Google Street View...

Canadian Court Rejects Defamation Liability for Hyperlinks: Crookes v. Newton

Posted on September 23, 2009
IP Osgoode alerts us to an interesting decision from the Court of Appeal for British Columbia that has important implications for online speech in Canada. In an opinion issued earlier this month, the Canadian court held that Jon Newton of p2pnet news could not be held liable for linking to allegedly defamatory articles written by others about politician Wayne Crookes...

Shameless Self-Promotion: Updating the Lanham Act for the Internet Age

Posted on September 22, 2009
I have an article in the newest issue of World Trademark Review. Entitled "Updating the Lanham Act for the Internet Age," the article looks at four areas for reform of the Lanham Act: fair use, use in commerce, adoption of statutory safe harbors, and the famous marks doctrine...

Mi Casa Es Su Casa ? But I Set the Rules

Posted on September 21, 2009
Paul Klocko got a surprise in the mail in April: a letter on official stationary from Weston, Wisconsin administrator Dean Zuleger, demanding that Klocko stop posting comments on the web criticizing him. The letter also asked that Klocko "come out from behind the cloak" and meet Zuleger in person...

Australia's Facebook Five and the Right to Whinge About Your Boss Online

Posted on September 18, 2009
It's hard to be a prison guard in Australia, and not just because the entire country is a penal colony ? zing! Apparently you run the risk of being fired for griping about your job in a private Facebook group, even if other corrections officers are the only ones reading your complaint...

Splitting the Digital Baby: California Court Creates New Procedure for Uncovering Anonymous Commenters

Posted on September 16, 2009
It's amazing how many times you can hear a phrase without really understanding it. Take "splitting the baby" for instance. Excuse my ignorance, but I'd always thought it had a more-or-less neutral connotation, suggesting a pragmatic compromise to a question or problem...

Weight Watchers from Hell ? Iran?s New Method for Slimming Tortured Bloggers

Posted on September 15, 2009
A little while back, I wrote about the Iranian persecution of bloggers and opponents of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There is so much evidence of this systematic assault on liberty that it was difficult to pick just one Exhibit A. I finally settled on the before and after pictures of Mohmmad Ali Abtahi, which showcased the effects of torture on a former vice president and leading cleric-blogger...

Citing Anti-SLAPP Law, New York Court Dismisses Libel Case Against Unmasked Commenter

Posted on September 14, 2009
Long before Liskula Cohen's case brought online anonymity into the mainstream press, New York courts were already struggling with the law surrounding the outing of anonymous Internet speakers. For example, back in October 2007, a court in New York County denied a school board member's request to unmask "Orthomom," an anonymous blogger who had published critical comments about her...

Citing Anti-SLAPP Law, New York Court Dismisses Libel Case Against Unmasked Commenter

Will Glenn Beck Sue a Defamatory Website in 2009?

Posted on September 11, 2009
Even though Glenn Beck has a prime spot on cable television to offer up his beliefs, it's sometimes quite hard to understand what his beliefs actually are. For example, as Jon Stewart has pointed out, he believes we have the best healthcare in the world, except when he says it's a nightmare...

Beverly Stayart Supports Seals, Not Cialis: Section 230, Search Engines, and Vanity Queries

Posted on September 10, 2009
Search engines have become the new deep pockets in this age of cyber-litigation. Despite the fact that they do not control the content of the sites they index in any way, people still routinely seek to hold them liable for unsavory or objectionable things that appear in search results...

Cybernetic Cain: In the Eyes of the Internet Law, You Are Your Brother?s Keeper

Posted on September 09, 2009
Let?s review the two basics of modern criminal law: The law punishes you for your individual crimes, not the crimes of your ethnic, religious, or kin group. If your father kills someone, you don?t follow him to jail. (Usually.) The law does not take away your freedom or valuable property without giving you some sort of reasonable pre-deprivation hearing...

"But We're Just An Innocent Web Host" Ain't Gonna Cut It

Posted on September 08, 2009
Akanoc Solutions Inc., Managed Solutions Group Inc., and Steven Chen, the owner of the two companies learned the hard way that being a web host doesn't make you automatically free from liability for copyright and trademark infringement committed by your customers...

The Judge Would Like to Be Your "Friend"

Posted on September 04, 2009
I'm always pleased to see judges embracing new technology. And it's not just because, as an aspiring lawyer and a Webby, techie guy, my ability to find a job in this economy may depend on it. I really do believe that technology can help judges do their jobs better...

We're Looking for a Few Good Interns

Posted on September 03, 2009
It's that time of year again. After a productive summer (thanks, summer interns!), things are starting to pick up around CMLP world headquarters. After several days of dodging overstuffed minivans and new students wandering lost around campus, we're moving full steam ahead into a new school year...

Florida Nukes the Fridge: Facebook, the Bar, and the Latest Entry in the Social Network Hijacking Saga

Posted on September 02, 2009
It?s rarely a good sign when a series grows beyond a trilogy. You end up with pod racing, fridge nuking, and Winona Ryder. So I was happy to stop writing about privacy on social networks after the cyber-possession trilogy: the Facebook snatching government employers in Bozeman, the MySpace lurking managers of Houston?s, and the Twitter brandjacking PR Firms...

All That Glitters Isn't Gold

Posted on September 01, 2009
If you've spent any time in front of a television screen during the last year, you've seen the ads. Even Ed McMahon and MC Hammer got in on the act. Since 2007, the recession phenomena Cash4Gold has spurred a cottage industry of Internet-age pawnshops, poping up on television screens and in mall kiosks across the land...

Judge Issues Opinion Overturning Lori Drew's Conviction

Posted on August 31, 2009
As originally reported by Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy, a federal district judge in California issued an opinion on Friday overturning the jury verdict finding Lori Drew guilty of a misdemeanor violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)...

Federal Courts OK Use of RECAP

Posted on August 28, 2009
We blogged last week about RECAP, a Firefox plugin that lets PACER users share federal court documents through a repository hosted by the Internet Archive. There was some rumbling late last week when Paul Levy and the folks at RECAP noted that the federal courts had posted statements warning lawyers about security concerns associated with the plugin...

Southeastern Conference Sacks Social Media, Then Recovers

Posted on August 26, 2009
Responding to a storm of criticism, the 12-university Southeastern Conference was forced to back away from proposed rules which would have prohibited fans from blogging, Twittering, instant messaging, or otherwise disseminating "any material or information about [its sports competitions], including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event...

'Skanky' Blogging, Anonymity and What's Right

Posted on August 26, 2009
Here we go again -- a new attack on anonymous speech, misusing the facts ripped from the current headlines about a case of one person's slimy online attacks on another. So, as what Maureen Dowd today called the "Case of the Blond Model and the Malicious Blogger" gains publicity steam, Dowd and too many other commentators seem to be missing some key points and drawing the wrong lessons...

Wikipedia's New Review Process: Closing the Libeler?s Playground

Posted on August 25, 2009
Wikipedia is growing up and exercising more control over its content. In years past, the free encyclopedia provided me with such jewels as an exegesis of Smurf Communism (long since removed). More importantly, Wikipedia helped keep us at CMLP busy, by serving as the equivalent of a libeler?s attractive nuisance, providing an easily accessible platform for defamers the world over...

Courtney Love Fires Back in Twitter Libel Suit

Posted on August 24, 2009
Last week, Courtney Love filed a motion to strike the lawsuit brought against her by Austin-based fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir (a/k/a the "Boudoir Queen"). In her m0tion, Love invokes California's anti-SLAPP statute (Cal. Code Civ. Proc...

Italian Bloggers On Strike!

Posted on August 21, 2009
Did you know that Italian bloggers are on strike? It's true! Since July 14, Italy's bloggers have been under self-imposed silence, in protest of a proposed law (called the Alfano decree) that would grant a right of reply to those who feel their reputations have been besmirched by something posted on the Web, writes the BBC...

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