MediaLawLetter April 19, 2013

10th Cir.: No Defamation in Film Commissioned by Union
Courthouse News
The 10th Circuit refused to revive defamation claims against a documentary filmmaker who implicated a construction contractor in a scandal involving foreign workers.
> Opinion: Spacecon Specialty Contractors v. Bensinger

N.Y. Sup.: Getting Hard for Him to ♥ New York
Courthouse News
New York police arrested and prosecuted a man four times for going to his mom’s home, where he lived, then the New York Post defamed him by calling him a “homeless burglar,” the man claims in court.

Ohio Com. Pleas: Judge: Woman spread lies about Madison County commissioner
Columbus Dispatch
Before the trial, however, both sides agreed to give up claims for money and instead said they only wanted the judge to decide what was true and what was false. Brogan said he believes this is the first time an Ohio court has been asked to decide a defamation and libel case that way.

Tenn. Cir.: WATE-TV, Don Dare countersue plumbing business
Knoxville News Sentinel
Young Broadcasting of Knoxville, which owns and operates the ABC affiliate WATE-TV, Channel 6, and its investigative reporter Don Dare have countersued a local Roto Rooter franchisee, which is pursuing a defamation case. The television network and reporter filed suit April 10 in Knox County Circuit Court and are seeking $2 million from business owner Rickey Hunt for slander against WATE and Dare and for publicizing information about Dare that put him in a false light.

FCC Will Examine Potential Changes to Broadcast Indecency Regulation
Hollywood Reporter
The government agency wants to hear about how it should police isolated curse words and nudity on public broadcast airwaves.

Rosenworcel, Pai Urge Action on Broadcaster Foreign Ownership Petition
Broadcasting & Cable
Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel both called on the FCC Thursday to act on requests to update its foreign ownership rules as they apply to broadcast stations holdings.

Aereo in perspective: It’s about big dollars
Medialife
Streaming service threatens the retrans revenue.

Cal. Sup.: Prospect Park Sues ABC For $25M Over ‘All My Children’ & ‘One Life To Live’ Licensing Agreement
Deadline
One week before Prospect Park is set to launch online soaps All My Children and One Life To Live, the production company today filed a breach of contract lawsuit against ABC, which licensed the shows two years ago to Prospect Park, the company of Jeff Kwatinetz and former Walt Disney studios president Rich Frank.
> Complaint: Prospect Park Networks v. American Broadcast Companies

CISPA Passes House; Obama Threatens Veto
US News
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, H.R. 624, a sweeping cybersecurity bill known as CISPA, passed the House of Representatives Thursday in a 288 to 127 vote, with 18 abstaining.

U.S. Senate moves toward Internet sales tax vote
IDG News Service
The U.S. Senate has moved toward a vote to impose sales tax on most Internet purchases, with lawmakers likely to vote to close debate on legislation next week.
> S. 336: Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013

‘Do Not Track’ is back — but ad industry has little to fear
paidContent
Congress and even some tech companies are promising to get serious about “Do Not Track” legislation, which will let consumers tell companies not to collect their personal information. But any meaningful change is unlikely.

Apple and Google both hold voice search data for two years
Financial Times
Earlier on Friday, Wired reported that Apple’s voice app Siri, which is perhaps most famous for its comical misinterpretations, keeps users’ data for up to two years. Now Google has told the FT that it stores queries to its voice search service for the same period.

S.D.N.Y.: YouTube Again Beats Viacom’s Massive Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
Hollywood Reporter
After an appellate court revived Viacom’s claims that YouTube hosted copyright infringing work, U.S. District judge Louis Stanton has again given the defendant a victory.
> Opinion: Viacom v. YouTube

See also
YouTube wins case against Viacom (again)
YouTube Blog
Today is an important day for the Internet. For the second time, a federal court correctly rejected Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube. This is a win not just for YouTube, but for the billions of people worldwide who depend on the web to freely exchange ideas and information.

Viacom Statement on YouTube Lawsuit
Viacom Blog
This ruling ignores the opinions of the higher courts and completely disregards the rights of creative artists.  We continue to believe that a jury should weigh the facts of this case and the overwhelming evidence that YouTube willfully infringed on our rights, and we intend to appeal the decision.

Data Dive: A Closer Look at Digital Editions for U.S. Newspapers
Audited Media
Here are the top 25 U.S. daily newspapers with digital editions from the September 2012 Snapshot report.

Time for Pecker?
New York Post
While several new names have surfaced as potential candidates to head Time Inc. after the spinoff, none is as intriguing as David Pecker, the long-time CEO of American Media Inc.

EU: Penguin offers to scrap Apple e-book deals to end EU antitrust case
Retuers
British media group Pearson’s Penguin unit has offered to scrap e-book deals with Apple that imposed price restrictions on Amazon and other retailers, EU antitrust regulators said on Friday. The concessions, if accepted by the European Commission, would make Penguin the fifth book publisher to settle with regulators, ending a 16-month long investigation without any finding of wrongdoing or fine.

Amazon’s Goodreads Purchase Scuttled Apple Partnership
Wall Street Journal (Digits)
Amazon.com’s announcement last month that it was purchasing book-recommendation site Goodreads did more than land the e-commerce giant a social-networking service. It also thwarted a possible partnership between the reading social network and Apple.

Al Jazeera eyeballing Tennis Channel
New York Post
Al Jazeera Media Networks is eyeing the Tennis Channel as it looks to become a player in the US sports market, The Post has learned.

Should Fox Become a Pay TV Network?
Hollywood Reporter
News Corp.’s Chase Carey says Aereo might force the network to convert, but many questions remain unanswered as to the viability of such a move.

See also
Here’s How Fox Could Make Billions By Ditching Broadcasting
Forbes

Could crowdfunding produce A&E’s next hit show?
Fortune
Crowdfunding success no longer just means financial backing. A&E’s partnership with RocketHub could mean it comes with advertisers and free publicity, too.

AOL’s second life
The Economist
Back from the dead, AOL is reinventing itself as a media company.

Mobile app redesign proves LinkedIn wants to be your destination for news
GigaOM
If it wasn’t already obvious from the company’s acquisition of social news reader Pulse and launch of Influencers, a professional blogging service, LinkedIn’s mobile app update on Thursday shows that the company is increasingly focused on news.

BBC America Partners With Twitter On Branded Video
Deadline Hollywood
Twitter has notched another deal in its bid to expand from a microblogging site to a full-fledged media platform. BBC America on Thursday evening tweeted it had signed with Twitter for the first “in-Tweet branded video synced to entertainment TV series.”

Earnings Reports

After Apple’s Rise, a Bruising Fall
New York Times
Shares of Apple were trading for more than $700 last year, but they have tumbled back and analysts are trying to understand why.

See also
iPhone sales hit 35 million last quarter, forecasts analyst
CNET News

Microsoft earnings: Windows wasn’t as bad as expected but it wasn’t good either
GigaOM
Despite flat year-over-year WIndows revenue, Microsoft logged a 19 percent profit year over year. Not too shabby for the much maligned company.

Google Revs Up 31%, Search To Change Dramatically
MediaPost
While some analysts believe the company could spread resources too thin, its first quarter 2013 earnings prove otherwise. Profit rose 16%, earning $3.35 billion, compared with the year-ago quarter, as the tech giant experienced improved revenue growth in its core advertising business.

Fujitsu Develops Technology That Turns Paper Into a Touchscreen
Mashable

Super-powered battery breakthrough claimed by US team
BBC News
The University of Illinois team says its use of 3D-electrodes allows it to build “microbatteries” that are many times smaller than commercially available options, or the same size and many times more powerful.

Pitch for a Coding Standard to Track Media Assets and Ads
New York Times
An industry group says a new system for monitoring where, when and how digital videos are watched would be a boon to media companies and marketers.

Twitter hires first data editor to find stories in tweets
CNET
Simon Rogers will use his expertise to make the data behind tweets digestible to all.

Google tells Explorers: No selling Glass
Computerworld
Just as the first Explorer Editions of Glass come off the production line, Google is making it clear that users selling or giving them away is not part of the plan.

Bahrain: ITV News crew forced to leave Bahrain ahead of grand prix
The Guardian
Rageh Omaar’s team detained by police as tensions mount in Gulf state ahead of weekend’s Formula One race.

China: New regulations in China ban journalists from quoting foreign media
South China Morning Post

Ethiopia: Reeyot Alemu: Ethiopia’s Jailed Truth Teller
Newsweek / Daily Beast
The winner of UNESCO’s press freedom prize has been jailed for speaking out against her government—but even behind bars, her name has not been forgotten.

Germany: Court to Raffle Media Seats in Neo-Nazi Trial
Spiegel Online
In response to political pressure and an order from Germany’s highest court, the Munich court overseeing the biggest neo-Nazi trial in German history said Friday it will redo the media accreditation process and allot seats to foreign and domestic media organizations based on a raffle.

Russia: Putin’s friends now own 88% of Russia’s Facebook
Quartz
Censorship or investor war? That’s a subject of debate in Russia, after a fund managed by a Russian businessman with close ties to the Kremlin acquired 48% of the country’s largest social-networking site, V Kontakte (“in touch”), which is similar to Facebook.

UK: Labour makes bid for libel law amendment in Lords
The Guardian
The Labour party is to launch a fresh bid in the Lords next week to stop big businesses from using expensive libel laws to silence their critics.

UK: Civil Justice Council Working Group Report on Defamation Costs
International Forum for Responsible Media
On Thursday 18 April 2013 the Civil Justice Council Working Group on Defamation costs published its Final Report on the case and options for costs protection in defamation and privacy proceedings.

UK: Warning over ‘threat to free speech’ as police arrest staff over chauffeur trip story
Evening Standard
A police force has been accused of a “high handed” threat to free speech after arresting two staff for allegedly leaking details of a Crime Commissioner’s trips which cost a total of nearly £700 in a chauffeur-driven limo.

UK: Barclay brothers named richest media figures in UK with £2.3bn fortune
The Guardian
The 78-year-old Barclay twins, owners of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, have been named at the top of the 2013 Sunday Times Rich List of people in publishing, PR and advertising in Britain.

WikiLeaks publishes five-hour conversation between Eric Schmidt and Julian Assange
The Verge
Google chairman Eric Schmidt and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange secretly met in 2011 and held a lengthy interview, according to a transcript published on the whistleblowing site.
> Transcript

Media shrug at Boston blunders
Politico
In a new media era, many journalists — and perhaps many in the audience as well — seem to accept that information on a big story is fluid and fragmentary, and are ready to move on without pausing long for either apology or explanation.

See also
The New York Post’s disgrace
Columbia Journalism Review
The paper smears a kid and a young man on its front page as possible terrorists.

U.S. should focus on helping Egyptians protect their freedoms
Washington Post
In short, the United States should worry less about influencing or cooperating with Mr. Morsi’s government and more about helping Egyptians defend liberal values.