10 Questions to a Media Lawyer: Judith Margolin
Judith Margolin is Vice President, Deputy General Counsel at Penske Media Corporation in New York. 1. How’d you get into media law? What was your first job? My first job of any sort was as a waitress. I spent many years working for a caterer in high school, and that job taught me that I…
DCS Annual Meeting Reviews Accomplishments and Plans for 2019
The annual meeting of the MLRC Defense Counsel Section was held on Thursday, November 8th at Carmine’s Restaurant on West 44th Street in New York City. DCS President Jack Greiner led the meeting. The first matter of business was the election of a new executive committee member. Rachel Matteo-Boehm of Bryan Cave in San Francisco…
GDPR: A Primer for Media Lawyers
By Bryony Hurst This summary was presented at the 2018 MLRC Media Law Conference. The outline is intended as an overview and does not purport to include all aspects and provisions of, or exceptions to, the General Data Protection Regulation, but seeks to address generally those aspects most relevant to media companies and clients. For…
Social Media for Businesses – Who Owns the Followers?
By Evynne Grover A lawsuit filed in August of 2018 by a newspaper publisher against its former journalist employee raises several issues regarding the ownership of social media followers acquired during an employee’s term of employment. According to the complaint filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia, when journalist Andy…
2 Milly Sues Epic Games Over Fortnite Dance Moves
What In The Wide, Wide World of Copyright Is Going On Here? By Andreas Becker This month, rapper 2 Milly sued Epic Games, the creators of the wildly popular online game Fortnite Battle Royale, asserting two counts of copyright infringement, two counts of right of publicity, and unfair competition. 2 Milly claims that Epic stole…
Copyright Protection for iPhone Photo Trumps Fair Use
By Mickey H. Osterreicher As millions of images are uploaded to the Internet by professional photographers, visual journalists and everyday citizens, the misappropriation of those images and the concomitant copyright infringement of those works has risen to epic proportions. For the most part those infringements go unnoticed but when they are, the reaction of the…
California Federal Court Puts Ex-Boyfriend’s Copyright Claims Over The Girls to Bed (Again)
By Abigail B. Everdell On November 19, 2018 Judge William H. Orrick of the Northern District of California dismissed with prejudice copyright and related claims against author Emma Cline and her publisher Random House that had been asserted by Cline’s ex-boyfriend Chaz Reetz-Laiolo in a fifth amended complaint. Emma Cline v. Reetz-Laiolo et al., Related…
Blanket Sealing Order Violates First Amendment and NC Open Court Rules
By Jonathan E. Buchan On December 18, 2018, the North Carolina Court of Appeals, in John Doe, by and through his Guardian ad Litem et al. v. John Doe et al., directed a state trial court to unseal most of a civil court file that had been sealed in its entirety since its commencement in…
First Amendment Protects Secretly Recording Government Officials in Public
By Michael J. Lambert Recording police officers performing their duties in public, once a potentially perilous act, has become a clearly established constitutional right. Each U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to address the question (First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh) has held that the First Amendment protects recording police conducting official activity in public….
Court Holds Kansas Anti-SLAAP Law Applies in Federal Court
By Eric Weslander In the first decision applying Kansas’ relatively new anti-SLAPP statute in federal court, Judge Carlos Murguia of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas concluded in a Memorandum and Order issued November 26, 2018 that the statute does apply in a federal diversity action in the District of Kansas, in…
In-House Counsel Meet at MLRC to Discuss Trump’s Attacks on the Media
About 25 in-house media counsel met at the MLRC offices in mid-December to discuss strategies to respond to President Trump’s attacks and threats on the media. It was, in a sense, a repeat of a similar meeting help two years ago, in December ’16, in anticipation of a Trump Administration. George Freeman’s invitation letter set…
From the Executive Director’s Desk: Santa’s Gift List for Media Players Naughty & Nice
By George Freeman To Donald Trump – A new copy of the Bill of Rights (since he obviously lost the one we gave him last year) To Donald Trump – Reading lessons so he can read #1; only a few should be necessary since the First Amendment is quite short To Sarah Huckabee Sanders –…
MediaLawLetter December 2018
Download Publication MLRC From the Executive Director’s Desk: Santa’s Gift List for Media Players Naughty & Nice In-House Counsel Meet at MLRC to Discuss Trump’s Attacks on the Media DCS Annual Meeting Reviews Accomplishments and Plans for 2019 10 Questions to a Media Lawyer: Judith Margolin LIBEL & PRIVACY D. Kan.: Court Holds Kansas Anti-SLAAP…