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Freedom to Differ 

A blog that speaks freely about legal issues facing the media and the internet. It mainly covers issues relating to the legal regulation of the internet and the media, but at times Constitutional law issues and politics are discussed. While the focus is on Australia, developments in other nations around the world are considered as well.
Post Frequency: 25.4/day Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 09:11:39 Recent Entries: 2028
Go to Freedom to Differ, find other International Law blogs, or browse all law blogs.
Choke
Posted on January 24, 2008I was really surprised to read that someone has adapted Chuck Palahniuk's novel Choke for the big screen:
Reimagining Fred Thompson's exit speech
Posted on January 24, 2008CQ Politics has put together a more theatrical exit speech than the one Fred Thompson actually gave:
MacHeads
Posted on January 23, 2008At the Geek Gestalt blog on CNET News.com Daniel Terdiman writes about the upcoming movie MacHeads. Read about the movie here, visit the official site here and watch the trailer: Macheads - the movie (trailer) Uploaded by brunogarattoni
Student blog participation
Posted on January 23, 2008Law X.0 summarises a recent US debate over whether student blog participation should be required by law professors: Should Law Profs Require Student Blog Participation? That's the question Adjunct Law Prof Blog editor Mitchell Rubinstein asked after noting that Barry Law School Adjunct Professor Marc John Randazza gives credit for...
Did Slate V violate copyright law with Hillary's Inner Tracy Flick?
Posted on January 23, 2008Last Wednesday I blogged about a mash-up from Slate V, Hillary's Inner Tracy Flick (see here). Now, Techdirt asks Did Slate Violate Copyright Law?: This isn't a blog about politics, so I won't venture an opinion on whether this is fair to Sen. Clinton or not, but the video has...
Exposing the lie that is "lol"
Posted on January 23, 2008I stumbled across this site today: It exposes the "lol" lie: This site, in conjunction with its sponsors, has been established to abolish the ever-present lie that is "LOL." Over the past decade it has become increasingly obvious that countless web users are misrepresenting themselves by typing LOL (or "lolling"...
Subway kiss leads to lawsuit
Posted on January 23, 2008The Guardian reports on a privacy lawsuit from China: A Chinese couple filmed kissing on a subway platform are suing the train operator after the video was uploaded to Youtube and watched by thousands. The three-minute film of the couple, in their 20s, was taken in September and uploaded to...
Sad day for Australian journalism
Posted on January 23, 2008The news that The Bulletin has been axed (see here) and that the Sunday program is going to be shifted to 7:30am on Sunday morning (see here) is a blow to serious, quality journalism in this country. Despite declining circulation figures, The Bulletin's axing comes as a surprise, but Nine's...
A brave man
Posted on January 23, 2008Jerry O'Connell is a brave actor to parody Tom Cruise's infamous Scientology recruitment video: the parody video Tom Cruise WANTS you to see! on FunnyOrDie.com
Teachers victims of cyberbullying
Posted on January 22, 2008As this is a UK report, I wonder if this is commonplace in Australia too ... SOARING numbers of British teachers are calling helplines for advice on how to cope after being "cyberbullied" on the internet by their pupils. The Association of School and College Leaders said that it now...
The Giuliani Anthem
Posted on January 22, 2008An anthem for Rudy Giuliani that seemingly mentions every embarrassing fact possible ...
Prank call from "Governor Schwarzenegger"
Posted on January 22, 2008Before the Michigan Primary last week, Matt Romney decided to take a some pressure off his dad Mitt Romney with a little practical joke:
X-Men: A P.T. Anderson Picture (Magnolia)
Posted on January 22, 2008Some slick editing from James Tinniswood presents X-Men as if it were directed by Paul Thomas Anderson:
"You, there. Step back from the Webcam"
Posted on January 22, 2008In a post at The Social (a blog for CNET News.com) Caroline McCarthy ponders what the Corey Delaney phenomenon really says about that generation: Corey Delaney, you're making us all look bad. Last week, the Web became all too well acquainted with this Australian teenager and the sunglasses he refused...
"I hate" forums raise legal issues
Posted on January 22, 2008The Guardian considers how hate groups could expose social networking sites to legal liability: Social networking forums, where users give full vent to their gripes about everyone from gas providers and airline companies to the local bus operator, have caught the eye of media lawyers, who warn that such postings...
Delicious 2.0
Posted on January 22, 2008TechCrunch asks Will We See Delicious 2.0 This Week?: It?s been four and a half months since Yahoo first previewed Delicious 2.0. We?ve heard not a peep from them since as to when it might launch publicly and replace the existing, somewhat dated interface...
Twittering the news
Posted on January 22, 2008The New York Times proclaims the arrival of microjournalism: ?NASHUA: Just saw Bill O?reily misbehaving at Obama rallly. Shoving Obama staffer.? With these sloppily spelled words, sent Jan. 5 by text message by John Dickerson, chief political correspondent for the online magazine Slate, did microjournalism come of age...
MySpace vs Facebook: translate!
Posted on January 22, 2008TechCrunch looks at the very different strategies being used by Facebook and MySpace to translate their English sites into other languages: MySpace continues to roll out local versions of its social network. As I wrote last week, they tend to put a team on the ground locally (they are now...
Turkey bans YouTube ... again
Posted on January 22, 2008Techdirt is amused by Turkey's latest attempt to ban YouTube: Third Time's A Charm For Turkish YouTube Ban? Maybe This Time The Video Will REALLY Disappear from the definition-of-insanity dept The Associated Press is reporting that a Turkish court has banned YouTube access from the country for the second time,...
Pownce open to the world
Posted on January 22, 2008TechCrunch reports that Pownce is now open to the public: Pownce, a service that lets users send messages, files, links, and events to friends, first launched into private beta over six months ago. It was founded by Leah Culver, Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka (Rose and Burka of Digg fame)...
Violence staged for YouTube
Posted on January 22, 2008The Chicago Tribune discusses an interesting phenomenon of the YouTube-age: Huddled around a cell phone in a West Chicago school, the five boys immediately caught a teacher's eye because the use of such devices is banned there. But when officials looked more closely, they discovered a new disciplinary issue...
George W Bush: the movie
Posted on January 22, 2008The New York Times reports that Oliver Stone is preparing to direct a picture about the life of George W Bush: Oliver Stone isn?t a fan of the decision to invade Iraq, but in his next film he wants to render ?a fair, true portrait? of President Bush, Variety reported...
"Chief Justice's tabloid exclusive raises eyebrows"
Posted on January 22, 2008An interesting piece from Greg Barns in today's Crikey: It is very rare indeed for the leading judge in a state to grant an exclusive interview to a media organisation. But Victoria?s Chief Justice Marilyn Warren has done just that, providing the Herald Sun with a front page splash today...
Copying photos and films for private use
Posted on January 22, 2008Just when we thought copyright law reform in Australia was off the agenda, this media release appears in my Inbox: SUBMISSIONS SOUGHT ON PHOTO AND FILM COPYING LAW Submissions are sought on an issues paper released today on the private copying of films and photographs...
Blogging in bed
Posted on January 22, 2008The results of a recent poll on ProBlogger has some surprising results: Read more here.
Exciting news (for Brisbane)
Posted on January 22, 2008David Starkoff broke the news on his blog last night: Today, I heard some truly joyous news: The days of filling overhead lockers are over as we?re set to join the many people making the move north to the sunshine state. We?re looking to open in the first half of...
Data portability: "a lofty but challenging goal"
Posted on January 21, 2008Yahoo News has a very good piece on data portability: It's hard to argue against data portability. After all, who could oppose giving people control over the data they load, publish, and store on Web sites? This is particularly timely now that average users have started feeling the "network fatigue"...
How to get your hands on that Tom Cruise book
Posted on January 21, 2008The Sydney Morning Herald looks at how some Australians are getting a copy of Andrew Morton's Tom Cruise biography: An underground market for the new unauthorised Tom Cruise biography has sprung up on auction site eBay, with Australian buyers willing to pay a significant premium for the book...
Bringing us together
Posted on January 21, 2008In a column for Wired, Tim Harford explains how email brings you closer to the person in the next cubicle: As a columnist (which is fancy for "journalist in jammies"), I ought to personify the conventional wisdom that distance is dead: All I need to get my work done is...
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Scalia Opens Religious Freedom Conference
Justice Antonin Scalia gave the keynote address at a conference on...
Ads Ask New Hampshire Candidates For Religious Freedom Positions
A coalition of groups advocating church-state separation is runnin...
Must Freedom of Expression include the license to offend?
Yes
Imposing any limits on speech, no matter how seemingly reasonab...
I'm wondering about how the law applies to my marriage. How does being married differ from being single in the eyes of the law
Short answer is that it probably depends on the State you live in, whether the c...
How does assault differ from battery?
Assault requires only the expectation of contact; battery requires contact....

Must Freedom of Expression include the license to offend?
Yes
Imposing any limits on speech, no matter how seemingly reasonab...
I'm wondering about how the law applies to my marriage. How does being married differ from being single in the eyes of the law
Short answer is that it probably depends on the State you live in, whether the c...
How does assault differ from battery?
Assault requires only the expectation of contact; battery requires contact....








