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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

Mosley Lawsuit Against News of the World Proceeds To Trial

Posted on July 07, 2008
News of the World and FIA President Max Mosley are in court over NoW's story that Mr. Mosley participated in a Nazi-themed sex orgy. Mr. Mosley denies the story and has sued for invasion of privacy.

Google's Street View and the EU

Posted on July 07, 2008
The Guardian's Jemima Kiss discusses whether Google's Street View technology violates the European Union's laws on privacy and data protection.

Now's Not a Good Time For a Strike: De Niro

Posted on July 06, 2008
Robert De Niro cautions his colleagues against striking. Here's a BBC report.

Reporter, Also Witness In Criminal Trial, Challenges Gag Order

Posted on July 06, 2008
A United States District Judge has issued a gag order that raises interesting issues of First Amendment law, because it prohibits a local tv reporter, who's also a witness in the trial, from reporting on that trial. Nashville reporter Phil...

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Cities Try To Clamp Down On Paparazzi

Posted on July 05, 2008
Malibu is trying to tighten restrictions on the paparazzi. Reuters has more here. Meanwhile, a photographer claims that surfers threw his camera into the Pacific when he tried to take a picture of actor Matthew McConaughey. Read more in this...

Ashley Dupre Drops Lawsuit Against Joe Francis

Posted on July 05, 2008
Ashley Dupre, the young woman involved in the Eliot Spitzer resignation scandal, has dropped her multi-million dollar right of publicity lawsuit against "Girls Gone Wild" entrepreneur Joe Francis. Read more here in a CNN story.

District Judge Tells Google To Release Data Logs To Viacom; Ruling Raises Concerns About Invasions of Privacy

Posted on July 04, 2008
A district court judge has granted Viacom's request for access to the database log that Google maintains of videos on YouTube. Viacom successfully made the argument to Judge Louis Stanton that it needed access to the log in order to...

Press Complaints Commission Upholds Intrusion Complaint Involving Publication of Footage On Newspaper Website

Posted on July 02, 2008
The Press Complaints Commission has upheld a complaint by a woman who says that a newspaper's website publication of video documenting a police raid on her home invaded her privacy because it might lead third parties to identify her address....

Chinese Journalist Sentenced

Posted on July 02, 2008
A Chinese court has sentenced two Internet journalists, Sun Lin and He Fang, for what appears to be incitement and has sent Sun Lin to prison for four years. The journalists have responded that they were only criticizing the government's...

Not So Grand Theft Auto

Posted on July 01, 2008
Remember the game Grand Theft Auto? And remember the shock when it turned out that someone had embedded (sic) sex scenes in the game? Even the city of Los Angeles got into the action. Well, inevitably someone brought a lawsuit,...

AMPTP Makes Offer To SAG As Contract Expires

Posted on July 01, 2008
It seems that film production has nearly ground to a halt and tv shows may be headed that way as the Screen Actors Guild's contract expired at midnight without any indication that the union is in productive talks with the...

Appellate Court Vacates Lower Court Order Concerning Discovery Re Actual Malice in News-Press Defamation Lawsuit

Posted on July 01, 2008
In the ongoing battle between Wendy McCaw, owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press, and various of its employees, third parties have been drawn in, including journalist Susan Paterno, who wrote an article covering the controversy for the American Journalism Review...

Evans v. Evans: Court Order Prohibiting "False and Defamatory" Information On Internet About Estranged Husband Is Prior Restraint

Posted on July 01, 2008
Here's a link to that case in which the estranged wife was accused of posting "false and defamatory statements" about her soon to be ex-husband online. The husband asked for an injunction, which the trial court granted, but an appellate...

Media and the Law: Famous Trials

Posted on June 30, 2008
Andy Webb writes about the role that a newly emerging technology--the telegraph--played in catching a fugitive--Dr. Hawley Crippen, and the possibility that Crippen was innocent. Mr. Webb is the director of Was Crippen Innocent? which debuts tomorrow on Channel 5,...

SAG Contract Due To Expire, No Strike On Horizon?

Posted on June 30, 2008
Here's an update on the state of negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. SAG wants the members of its sister union AFTRA to reject the contract that AFTRA leaders have negotiated...

"Family Guy" Creator and Google Experiment With New Series To Begin in Fall

Posted on June 30, 2008
Seth MacFarlane, who created the hit series The Family Guy, and Google, are launching Seth MacFarlane?s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, a new animation series, which will be available only on the web. Why? Because Mr. MacFarlane feels that the "taste...

Publishers Will Use Software To Seek Out Plagiarists

Posted on June 30, 2008
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that a number of scholarly publishers have banded together to use CrossCheck, a software program that tracks down plagiarism in articles sent to them for publication. Elsevier's announcement that the publishers are on the...

Steven Hatfill, DOJ Settle Lawsuit

Posted on June 27, 2008
Steven Hatfill, who was named as a "person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax attacks, has settled his defamation and invasion of privacy lawsuit against the Department of Justice. DOJ has admitted no wrongdoing, but will pay Dr. Hatfill close...

Sixth Circuit Upholds FCC's Rulemaking Authority In Alliance for Community Media Case

Posted on June 27, 2008
The Sixth Circuit has upheld the FCC's rulemaking authority in Alliance for Community Media v. FCC. The case involved a challenge to an FCC "adopting rules interpreting and implementing section 621(a)(1) of the Communications Act of 1934...which prohibits local franchising...

SAG-ging Over Union Talks

Posted on June 27, 2008
George Clooney has published a letter discussing the two sides taken over the SAG/AFTRA division, and declining to take a position. "Both are, of course, right," he says. Meanwhile, the two unions continue their standoff.

Press Complaints Commission Denies Harry Potter Author's Complaint Concerning Media Invasion of Privacy

Posted on June 27, 2008
The Press Complaints Commission has told "Harry Potter" author J. K. Rowling that publication of information about her new digs somewhere near her existing property in Perthshire does not amount to an invasion of privacy. The PCC told the writer...

Association Pays To Head Off Libel Lawsuit

Posted on June 27, 2008
Another instance of libel tourism, this time involving a book review.

NBC, Plaintiff Settle "To Catch a Predator" Lawsuit; Program's Future In Doubt

Posted on June 26, 2008
NBC and Patricia Conradt have settled a lawsuit over the death of Ms. Conradt's brother Louis, who killed himself after he was accused of engaging in "sexually explicit" conversations with an adult who posed as a child for the NBC...

Journalist Suspected of Murders Kills Himself

Posted on June 25, 2008
The BBC reports that a journalist who had written about the deaths of three women brutally killed in Kicevo, Macedonia, committed suicide in his cell after his arrest. Vlado Taneski killed himself by drowning himself in a bucket of water....

The Naked Lawsuit

Posted on June 25, 2008
Robert Burck, "the Naked Cowboy," can proceed with his suit against Mars Candy for using what the company claims is a parody of his image in an ad featuring an M&M candy playing a guitar in boots and underpants, just...

Management Cuts Staff at Berliner Zeitung

Posted on June 24, 2008
The Guardian reports that owner David Montgomery has eliminated 30 reporter position at the famous newspaper Die Berliner Zeitung, where staff have been dissatisfied with his management style for some time.

Heinz UK Pulls Deli Mayo Ad After Consumers Complain

Posted on June 24, 2008
Heinz has stopped showing that ad for Deli Mayo that features two men kissing, after viewers filed hundreds of complaints in less than a week. Comments ranged from "inappropriate" to "offensive" to "unsuitable" for children to see this scene. However,...

Texas Court of Appeals Rules Paper Entitled To Summary Judgment in Defamation Case

Posted on June 24, 2008
The Texas Court of Appeals, 1st District, has held that the Houston Chinese Press was entitled to summary judgment in a defamation case brought by David Tang, a limited purpose public figure. The affidavit presented by the Press's editor negated...

Iranian Paper Loses License

Posted on June 24, 2008
An Iranian newspaper that has carried articles criticizing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has lost its license to operate. Read more here in a Reuters story.

Cameras and Cuisine

Posted on June 23, 2008
The blog Serious Eats New York has a post about the controversy over photographing the food (as opposed to the chefs or the diners) in high profile restaurants.

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