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Media & Entertainment Law

Media Law Prof Blog

Media law resources, information, and news for the academic community.

Post Frequency: 34.8/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 12:48:00

Mark Felt Dies

Posted on December 19, 2008
Mark Felt, who as "Deep Throat" provided Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward with assistance in ferreting out the Watergate affair, has died at the age of 95. Read coverage here and here.

Iraqi Judge Says Iraqi Journalist Who Threw Shoes At President Bush Has Been Beaten

Posted on December 19, 2008
An Iraqi judge has verified the claim that the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush has been mistreated in custody. Judge Dhia al-Kinani said Muntazer al-Zaidi had bruises on his face. Read more here.

MPs Request Reform of Libel Laws

Posted on December 19, 2008
Three influential MPs, Dennis MacShane, Michael Gove and Norman Lamb, are asking for reform of Britain's libel laws. Among their requests: that criminal libel be abolished, and that the Reynolds defense be codified. Read more here.

Ofcom Fines BBC For Phone In Competitions That Misled Participants

Posted on December 19, 2008
The BBC will pay an enormous fine--some 95,000 pounds--over phone-in competitions in which participants had no chance of winning. Ofcom noted that in these "live" (but actually pre-recorded) competitions, viewers who called in were deliberately excluded from winning prizes...

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Proposed New York State Budget Would Tax Some Media Products

Posted on December 18, 2008
In an attempt to close the budget gap, the state of New York is considering taxing digital products such as downloads and putting an end to the perks that accompany entertainment industry purchases such as cable and satellite tv subscriptions...

Iraqi Shoe Tossing Journalist Faces Trial For Assault

Posted on December 17, 2008
Muntadar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who works for al-Baghdadia TV, who threw his shoes at President Bush, is now in government custody, and has been beaten, says his brother. He will probably be tried fairly soon, for assaulting a foreign...

Studios Shifting To More Work With AFTRA

Posted on December 17, 2008
The Screen Actors Guild may be losing support among broadcast tv studios, who want to avoid any disruption as they look toward filming of spring pilots. The studios may instead prefer to deal with AFTRA (the American Federation of Television...

How Scra-fabulous!

Posted on December 17, 2008
Hasbro, the makers of Scrabble, is abandoning its infringement lawsuit against the inventors of the game Scrabulous, which was created for Facebook fans. RJ Softwares has made changes replacement games Wordscraper and Lexulous, which Hasbro agrees do not risk confusion...

Approaching Network Neutrality Around the World

Posted on December 16, 2008
Rebecca Wong, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham Law School, and Daniel Garrie, Rutgers-Camden Law School, have published "Network Neutrality: Laissez-Faire Approach or Not?" at 34 Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal 315-365 (2008). Here is the abstract...

Head of Bar Council Says Media Will Face More Invasion of Privacy Lawsuits

Posted on December 16, 2008
A leading British lawyer predicts that individual privacy rights will increase over the coming years. Desmond Browne, the head of the Bar Council, says that just as the media informs those who are likely to be the targets of defamatory...

Judge Finds Guardian Article About Elton John is "Teasing," Dismisses Suit

Posted on December 16, 2008
The Guardian has succeeded in obtaining a dismissal of the defamation lawsuit that Elton John filed against it. Sir Elton had sued over a July article by Marina Hyde called "A Peek at the Diary Of..." that made fun of...

Iraqi Journalist Tosses Shoes at President Bush, Afghan Reporters Do Not

Posted on December 15, 2008
Here's an update on Iraqi reaction to the journalist who threw his footwear at U. S. President Bush. Here's video of the event. The Afghan media were more polite.

Ninth Circuit Affirms Lower Court In Copyright Decision Involving Sculptures

Posted on December 15, 2008
The Ninth Circuit has affirmed a lower court ruling finding that defendants infringed plaintiffs' copyright in sculptures created in the early part of the twentieth century. Whether the sculptures are protected by copyright turns on analyses of both the 1909...

Australian Government Tests New Internet Filter

Posted on December 15, 2008
The New York Times reports on a test of the Australian government's new national Internet filter that's intended to protect Aussie cybersurfers from objectionable and illegal content. But opponents of the filter say it isn't all that effective, charging that...

Bettie Page Dies

Posted on December 12, 2008
Actress/pinup/model Bettie Page, who scandalized the movie world with her willingness to pose in scanty clothes and in suggestive poses, has died. She left the entertainment world several decades ago after a religious conversion but her life still continued to...

Advertising Standards Authority Says More Ads Comply With Rules Regulating Marketing Foods To Children

Posted on December 11, 2008
The (UK) Advertising Standards Authority says its rules governing the advertising of foods to children are bearing fruit (shall we say), after releasing the results of its second survey in two years. The agency looked at 267 broadcast ads and...

Daily Mirror To Pay Damages To Josh Harnett Over Story

Posted on December 11, 2008
The Daily MIrror has agreed that its story about Josh Hartnett's "sexual dalliances" with a mystery woman" in a London hotel are fabricated, and will pay the star of Blackhawk Down and Pearl Harbor twenty thousand pounds in damages. Mr....

Real Knife Substituted For Stage Prop Causes Injury To Actor

Posted on December 11, 2008
The BBC reports that VIennese police are investigating why a real knife, rather than a stage prop, was on stage when a performance of Friedrich Schiller's Mary, Queen of Scots, went on. Daniels Hoevels, the actor who used it, didn't...

Tyler Perry Wins Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

Posted on December 10, 2008
Tyler Perry has won a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Donna West, who claimed that the actor's film Diary of a Mad Black Woman infringed on her work Fantasy of a Black Woman. A federal jury in Marshall, Texas, did...

The Art of Writing

Posted on December 10, 2008
Sherry Colb examines the claim that term paper writing for profit is protected by the First Amendment.

Mark Lester Wins Apology, Damages From Daily Mail Over Divorce Story

Posted on December 10, 2008
The Daily Mail has agreed that claims in a story it published that former child actor Mark Lester (Oliver!) assaulted his ex-wife and let his son sleep in the same room as pop singer Michael Jackson were false. The paper...

SAG Sets Strike Vote For Early Next Year

Posted on December 10, 2008
From the AP: The Screen Actors Guild says it will begin mailing out ballots for a strike vote on January 2. Here's more from the SAG website. Screen Actors Guild today announced that strike authorization ballots will be mailed to...

Chicago Tribune Held Story On Illinois Governor

Posted on December 10, 2008
The Chicago Tribune released a statement concerning its investigation of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Gerould Kern, Executive Editor of the Trib, said in part, As a standard practice, our reporters contact individuals involved in these stories for confirmation and comment...

Wikipedia Page No Longer Blocked In Britain

Posted on December 10, 2008
It's over. The Guardian reports that the ban on a Wikipedia page discussing a Scorpions album cover is over, following a review by the Internet Watch Foundation, of its decision to place the page on its "censored" list because of...

House Committee Releases Report on FCC

Posted on December 09, 2008
Here's a link to the recently released report on the FCC, Deception and Distrust. The report comes from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Illinois Governor Arrested On Federal Corruption Charges

Posted on December 09, 2008
Here's a link to the criminal complaint filed against Governor Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois. He's charged with, among other things, "corruptly solicit[ing] and deman[ing] a thing of value, namely, the firing of certain Chicago Tribune editorial member responsible for...

Wikipedia Article Page May Run Afoul of British Child Porn Internet Laws

Posted on December 09, 2008
A flap has developed over a Wikipedia page's use of the image from the 1976 "Virgin Killer" album cover, the work of the German band Scorpions. The British group the Internet Watch Foundation indicated that it thought the cover, which...

A View of Computer Crime in Colombia

Posted on December 09, 2008
Carlos Pablo Marquez, Pontifical University Javeriana Inicio & University of Oxford, has published Information, Economics and Crime: Computer Crimes in Colombian Criminal Code (Editorial Leyer, 2008). Here is the abstract. The author studies, from the legal and economic perspective the...

Real Life Criminal Law and Virtual Harassment

Posted on December 09, 2008
Chris Reed, University of London, Queen Mary, has published "Why Must You Be Mean to Me? - Crime, Punishment and Online Personality." Here is the abstract. The development of online social spaces such as YouTube, MySpace and Second Life, has...

A Market Analysis of Net Neutrality

Posted on December 09, 2008
Nicholas Economides, New York University, Stern School of Business, and Joacim Tag, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, have published "Net Neutrality on the Internet: A Two-Sided Market Analysis," as NYU Working Paper No. 2451/26057. Here is the abstract...

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