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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

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

Posted on September 09, 2008
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. in the copyright infringement lawsuit they filed against RDR Books, the publisher of the Harry Potter Lexicon, an unofficial encyclopedic companion to the popular Harry Potter series of books...

Publishing Personal and Private Information: Understanding Your Legal Risks

Posted on September 08, 2008
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...

Montana Shield Law Protects Anonymous Commenters

Posted on September 05, 2008
Judge Todd Baugh of Montana's 13th Judicial District ruled on Wednesday that Montana's shield law protects an online newspaper from having to disclose the identities of anonymous commenters. The ruling treats anonymous commenters like other confidential sources, whose identities are commonly protected by state shield laws...

Cape Cod Blogger Peter Robbins Sued For Libel Over Comments About Local Dredging Dispute

Posted on September 04, 2008
Peter Robbins, author of the Robbins Report, a blog that appears on the popular community website Cape Cod Today, and an anonymous commenter have been sued over statements they made criticizing a group of Barnstable, MA residents who opposed the dredging of Barnstable Harbor...

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Copyright Challenge in New Push for Open Government Data

Posted on September 03, 2008
Carl Malamud, a hero in providing access to information, has posted online the 38-volume California Code of Regulations, over which the state claims copyright ownership. He's been doing things like this for a while, but the California code is a big deal in every respect...

New York Lawyer Sues Law Blogger for Reporting on Malpractice Lawsuit

Posted on September 02, 2008
Brooklyn attorney Marina Tylo filed a lawsuit against Andrew Lavoott Bluestone of the New York Attorney Malpractice Blog last week. According to the Summons with Notice, Tylo seeks $10,000,000 in damages for libel, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and tortious interference with prospective contractual relations, all arising out of the following statement on Bluestone's blog:� Here is the full text cite for a legal malpractice case�in which plaintiff's attorney served a summons before buying the index number...

Analysis of the MBTA's Lawsuit Against Three MIT Students Who Discovered Flaws in the T's Fare System

Posted on September 01, 2008
Our very own Tuna Chatterjee is featured this week on the award-winning legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer.� Tuna discusses the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's (MBTA) recent lawsuit against three MIT students who discovered significant security flaws in the MBTA's fare system...

Dog Track Drops Lawsuit, Leaving Blogger Relieved But Rattled

Posted on August 29, 2008
The Arizona Star reports that the Tucson Greyhound Park has dropped its defamation lawsuit against blogger Karyn Zoldan of the End Tucson Greyhound Racing website and blog. Both parties agreed to dismissal of the suit, but Zoldan did not pay anything in return for the settlement...

Blogger Arrested for Leaking Songs from Unreleased Guns N' Roses Album

Posted on August 28, 2008
Kevin Cogill, a blogger on Antiquiet, a site that provides "uncensored music reviews and interviews," was arrested yesterday at his home near Los Angeles on suspicion of violating federal copyright law after he allegedly posted nine songs from the unreleased -- and highly-anticipated -- Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy...

Turkish Court Ends Latest YouTube Ban

Posted on August 27, 2008
The Guardian reports that a Turkish court has lifted the ban on YouTube in that country, imposed by an Ankara court in May 2008 after it determined that certain videos posted on the popular video-sharing site insulted Mustafa Kemal Atat�rk, the founder of modern Turkey...

Wisconsin Website Operator Files Lawsuit Over Frivolous Demand to Take Down Link to Local Police Department

Posted on August 26, 2008
I just updated one of the more frivolous entries in our legal threats database, which has now spurred a federal lawsuit.� While it is barely worth blogging about, I thought it might be valuable as a cautionary tale for those who believe sending cease-and-desist letters is a no-lose proposition...

Metallica's Management Suppresses Reviews, Metallica Puts Them Back Up

Posted on June 13, 2008
In an interesting counterpoint to Prince?s latest takedown exploits ? see Sam?s recent posts ? rock band Metallica recently ?ear spanked? its management for demanding that websites take down reviews of unreleased Metallica songs. While the reviews are back online after the short downtime, the dispute raises copyright issues worth further discussion...

The Future of Civic Media at MIT

Posted on June 12, 2008
I'll be at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the next two days at a conference for the winners of the Knight News Challenge. CMLP was a lucky recipient of a Knight News Challenge award in 2007. The conference, which Knight plans to make an annual event, is being hosted by MIT's Center for Future Civic Media (which, incidentally, also won a News Challenge award last year)...

More on Prince, Bootlegging, and Copyright Protection for Live Performances

Posted on June 11, 2008
All right copyright geeks, it's time to do some more hypothesizing on the Prince/Radiohead/YouTube flap I blogged about in my previous post, Prince, Radiohead, and the Bootlegging Provision of the Copyright Act. Readers posted great comments that merit some elaboration in this post...

Sandra Day O'Connor's Foray into Online Gaming

Posted on June 10, 2008
Last Wednesday, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor gave the keynote speech at the annual Games for Change convention at the Parsons The New School For Design in New York City. In her speech, O'Connor announced her project Our Courts, which she is developing with Arizona State University (ASU) and Georgetown University Law Center...

Appeals Court Rejects Trademark Claims Against Parody Website

Posted on June 09, 2008
In late May, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued an opinion in Utah Lighthouse Ministry v. Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, 2008 WL 22043807 (10th Cir. May 29, 2008). With this decision, the Tenth Circuit joins an expanding group of federal appeals courts holding that federal trademark law does not prohibit a noncommercial website's use of a trademark for purposes of commenting on or criticising the trademark owner...

DMCA "Repeat Infringers": Scientology Critic?s Account Reinstated after Counter-Notification

Posted on June 06, 2008
The Scientology critic known as ?Wise Beard Man? returned to YouTube this week after successfully filing counter-notifications to copyright claims that had earlier been made against his account. The takedown and delayed return illuminate another of the lesser-known shoals of the DMCA safe harbor, the 512(i)(1)(A) ?repeat infringers? consideration...

The (Proposed) Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act Is Crazy

Posted on June 06, 2008
In a twist on the old adage "hard cases make bad law," Representatives Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Kenny Hulshof (R-MO) introduced a bill (H.R. 6123) in the House on May 22 which, if passed, would be known as the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act...

EFF Asks Court to Protect Anonymity of Fake-Profile Creator

Posted on June 05, 2008
Larry Dominick, the Town President of Cicero, Illinois, is seeking information from MySpace about an anonymous user who set up fake profiles for him on the social networking site. He filed a petition in Illinois state court, seeking permission to issue interrogatories and document requests to MySpace about the user's identity...

Journalism that Matters Conference in Minneapolis

Posted on June 03, 2008
Over the next two days, I'll be participating in and speaking at the Journalism that Matters: Minnesota conference organized by the Media Giraffe Project, Minnesota Journalism Center, and Minnesota News Council. It's the third in a series of Journalism that Matters gatherings...

Prince, Radiohead, and the Bootlegging Provision of the Copyright Act

Posted on June 02, 2008
Prince is at it again. We've covered his legal antics before -- his lawyers went after a number of fan sites last November, and Universal Music sent a takedown notice to YouTube last June over a video of a toddler dancing with "Let's Go Crazy" playing in the background...

Bill Will Revamp Tennessee Open Records Law

Posted on May 30, 2008
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen is expected to sign into law a recently passed bill that would provide a much-needed overhaul of the state's open records practices. The bill, SB3280, corrects a number of deficiencies in the current Tennessee Open Records Act...

Singaporean Company Claims Patent to Image-Based Linking: Patent Busting Needed!

Posted on May 29, 2008
Vuestar, a patent-holding company from Singapore that describes itself as "the Pioneer of visual search," is asserting patent rights in the technology that enables websites to link to other webpages using an image rather than text. According to Ars Technica, the firm recently has been sending invoices to companies that it believes are using its patented technology...

Highlights from the Legal Guide: An Overview of Trade Secrets

Posted on May 28, 2008
This is the tenth in a series of posts calling attention to topics we cover in the Citizen Media Legal Guide. In this post, we highlight the section on trade secrets, which describes the limitations imposed on publishers who rely on or publish certain confidential business information and offers practical advice to citizen media creators on how to avoid liability for publishing trade secrets...

Consumer Advocate's Free Speech Rights Upheld in UDRP Trademark Proceeding

Posted on May 27, 2008
Back in 2006, Robert Arkow, a self-styled consumer advocate who played a role in establishing the California (and then federal) Do Not Call lists, created a website at "metrolinkriders.com." The site hosts a forum for users and employees of Metrolink, the local commuter railway service in southern California, to comment upon Metrolink's services and policies...

YouTube Announces New Citizen News Channel

Posted on May 22, 2008
Earlier this week, YouTube announced that it had designated a news manager for the site and created a Citizen News channel. Olivia M. (strangely, she didn't include her last name), YouTube's new News Manager, announced the initiative on YouTube's blog: Thanks to better, cheaper, and easier access to video equipment, there's an amazing amount of news being reported on YouTube every single day by citizens in all corners of the globe...

Senator Lieberman Asks YouTube to Take Down Radical Islamist Videos

Posted on May 22, 2008
On Monday, Senator Joe Lieberman wrote to Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, asking the company to remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations from YouTube. The May 19 letter pointed out that many videos posted by radical groups violate YouTube's own terms of service because they contain "graphic or gratiuitious violence...

A&P v. D'Avella Update: "Produce Paradise" Lawsuit Settles

Posted on May 21, 2008
David's post yesterday got us thinking about one of our favorite cases, A&P v. D'Avella. As some of you will recall, the case involved two brothers who worked at an A&P supermarket in New Jersey and created parodic rap songs with supermarket themes under the name "Fresh Beets...

CMLP Celebrates Its First Year of Blogging

Posted on May 20, 2008
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Citizen Media Law Project's blog. Back on May 20, 2007, we didn't have much in the way of staff (it was just me) and we didn't have a whole lot to say (again, it was just me), but we knew we had to start somewhere...

MySpace Wins Important CDA 230 Case in Fifth Circuit

Posted on May 19, 2008
Last Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of negligence claims brought against MySpace by the family of a teenage girl who used the popular social networking site to communicate with and arrange to meet a nineteen-year-0ld boy who sexually assaulted her...

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