New York High Court: Don’t Send Journalists to Testify In States with Weak Shield Laws
Subpoena to Jana Winter Rejected By Dori Ann Hanswirth and Patsy Wilson New York-based journalists received good news last week when the State’s highest court reversed a lower court order requiring FoxNews.com investigative reporter Jana Winter to appear for testimony in Colorado because of the substantial likelihood that she would be compelled to identify confidential…
MediaLawLetter Associate Edition 2013 Issue 4
Download Publication MLRC MLRC Annual Dinner 2013“A Conversation With Aaron Sorkin” Online Advertising Takes Center Stage at 2013 MLRC Forum Minutes of MLRC’s 2013 Annual Meeting INTERNATIONAL LIBEL & PRIVACY UK & Europe: Across the Pond: Updates on UK and European Media Law DevelopmentsOpen Justice, Jurors and the Internet, Implementation of the Defamation Act, and…
Google’s Digital Book Program Passes Fair Use Test
Index and Snippets a “Transformative Use” By Judy Endejan On November 14, Judge Denny Chin ruled that Google’s digitization of more than twenty million books was a fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 107. Authors Guild, Inc., and Betty Miles, Joseph Goulden, and Jim Bouton v. Google Inc., No. 05 Civ. 8136 (S.D.N.Y.)….
Photojournalist Wins $1.22 Million Judgment Over Images Taken From Twitter
By Itai Maytal After a seven-day trial on damages, a federal jury found that Agence France-Presse and Getty Images willfully infringed upon eight “twitpics” posted by photographer Daniel Morel that he took of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and awarded him $1.22 million. Morel v. AFP and Getty Images, No. 10 Civ. 2730 (S.D.N.Y. jury verdict…
Judgment Against Austrian Newspaper Not a Violation of Article 10
Defamation, Privacy and Public Figures By Conor McCarthy and Caoilfhionn Gallagher Print Zeitungsverlag GmbH v. Austria is a somewhat surprising decision by the European Court of Human Rights, in which the Court, applying principles derived, in part, from its case law on privacy, rejected a newspaper’s challenge to a defamation judgment against it in respect…
Across the Pond: Updates on UK and European Media Law Developments
By David Hooper Open Justice: Naming Acquitted Defendants Who Might Be At Risk from Terrorists The recent decision given on 17 December 2013 in the Court of Appeal by the Lord Chief Justice in R v Marines A, B, C, D and E and Guardian and other Media 2013 EWCA 2367 raised an interesting question…
Prosecutors’ Online Posts and Leaks Grounds for New Trial in Murder Case Use of Social Media and Leaks Prejudiced Fair Trial Rights
Describing it as a “bitter pill to swallow,” a federal judge granted a new trial to five former New Orleans police officers convicted of murder and civil rights violations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. United States v. Bowen, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 134434 (E.D. La. Sept. 17, 2013) (Engelhardt, J.). In what the judge…
New California Law Criminalizes Photography of Celebrities’ Children
California has increased the criminal penalties for harassment directed toward the children of celebrities or other children harassed because of their parents’ or guardians’ line of work. The new statute increases the crime of general harassment as well as sets up a derivative civil cause of action. Senate Bill 606, which was signed into law…
Third Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Copyright Lawsuit Arising from VH1 Reality Shows
By Shaina Jones Ward The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently affirmed the dismissal of a copyright case against Viacom Inc., which alleged that episodes of two VH1 shows were based on a treatment the plaintiff had submitted to the company. Sims v. Viacom, Inc., No. 13-1567 (3d Cir. Nov. 14, 2013)….
Sixth Circuit Upholds Dismissal of All Claims Related to “Soul Men” Film and Soundtrack
By William F. Wilson and Laura P. Merritt The Sixth Circuit recently affirmed summary judgment for the defendants on all claims asserted by Sam Moore, formerly of the soul music group “Sam & Dave,” related to the 2008 feature film “Soul Men” which starred Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac. Moore v. The…
Argentina Supreme Court Protects Online Reposting
Intermediary Liability Doctrine: Same Wine in New Bottle? By Eduardo Bertoni Like other Latin American countries, Argentina does not have specific laws governing liability for online intermediaries for third party posted content. The absence of specific laws on intermediary liability has become particularly problematic in defamation and invasion of privacy cases, with judges applying laws…
Setbacks and Tension in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
By Eduardo Bertoni Just a few weeks ago, at the MLRC London Conference I was conversing with European and American colleagues about the advances and setbacks of international jurisprudence regarding freedom of press and freedom of expression. Some delegates were worried about the European Court of Human Rights’ recent free expression jurisprudence and noted that,…
MLRC’s 2013 Annual Meeting
MLRC’s Annual Meeting was held on November 13, 2013 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York. Board of Directors Election The Chair of the Board of Directors, Susan E. Weiner, of NBCUniversal, Inc., called the meeting to order. The first order of business was the election of Directors for 2014. Two new Directors were…
Online Advertising Takes Center Stage at 2013 MLRC Forum
This year’s annual Forum – scheduled right before the cocktail hour of the Annual Dinner – tackled the technical and policy issues surrounding online advertising networks and programmatic buying. The program, which was supported by Microsoft and Hachette Book Group, and titled “Red, Hot and Crowded: Ad Networks, Exchanges and the Media Business,” began with…
MLRC Annual Dinner 2013: “A Conversation With Aaron Sorkin”
On Wednesday, November 13, 2013, nearly 700 MLRC members and friends gathered for MLRC’s Annual Dinner at the Grand Hyatt in New York. Acclaimed screenwriter and playwright Aaron Sorkin was interviewed by Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. Aaron Sorkin is an Academy-Award winning writer and renowned playwright. His works include the…
Wall Street Journal Succeeds in Lifting UK Reporting Injunction
Four Day Ban on Libor Scandal Reporting By Jason P. Conti, Jacob P. Goldstein Prosecutors from Britain’s Serious Fraud Office raced to court on October 17 to obtain an injunction prohibiting the publication of details of their investigation into alleged manipulation of benchmark interest rates. Matter of R v. Tom Hayes Meanwhile, The Wall Street…
ECHR Rules That News Portal Can Be Held Responsible for User Comments
Estonian Ruling Not a Breach of Article 10 By Tim Pinto and Mark Dennis The owner of an online news portal had been found liable by the Estonian courts for defamatory user generated comments posted on that portal, even though it removed the comments promptly upon notification. The European Court of Human Rights has held,…