California Newspaper Reports on New Evidence of Priest Abuse and Diocese Inaction
Appeals Court Affirms Modification of Protective Order to Allow “Access” to Unfiled Discovery By Roger Myers and Leila Knox A California newspaper’s two-year court battle with the Catholic church to obtain access to unfiled discovery after settlement of a sex abuse case by a former altar boy ended October 30 with publication of a Special…
Utah Supreme Court Orders Disclosure of Criminal Investigation Documents
Citizen Activist Wins Public Records Fight By Jeff J. Hunt, David C. Reymann, and LaShel Shaw In a significant decision analyzing the interplay between the Utah Constitution and the State’s open records statute, the Utah Supreme Court recently held that the Utah Constitution did not bar a citizen activist from obtaining lawfully-subpoenaed bank records in…
New York Times Moves Forward With Suit Seeking Torture Memos
By David McCraw and Jeremy Kutner It has been one of the most perplexing secrets of the post-9/11 era: Why was no one in the CIA ever charged with torturing detainees abroad or with destroying the videos that documented the interrogations? The answers lie in a series of classified memos written between 2010 and 2012…
ECHR: Criminal Conviction for Denying The Armenian Genocide in Breach with Freedom of Expression
By Dirk Voorhoof On 17 December 2013 the European Court of Human Rights had ruled by five votes to two that Switzerland had violated the right to freedom of expression by convicting Doğu Perinçek, chairman of the Turkish Workers’ Party, for publicly denying the existence of the genocide against the Armenian people (see our blogs…
The EU-US “Safe Harbor” for Personal Data: No Longer Safe
By Kurt Wimmer Under European data protection law, the personal data of European nationals can only be transferred outside of the European Union to countries with “adequate protections” for personal data. The list of countries the EU has found to be “adequate” is quite short, and, notably, does not include the United States. To permit…
In Wolf of Wall Street Claim, EDNY Dismisses Statutory Privacy, Common Law Privacy, and Private Figure Defamation Claims
By Vincent Cox The 2013 film Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DeCaprio, was a black comedy that depicted a multitude of misdeeds attributable to the eponymous Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, as well as Stratton Oakmont, the notorious “boiler room” he helped to found. The film is “based…
Del. Court Holds That Hyperlink Can Restart Statute of Limitations for Libel
Getting Hyper Over the Single Publication Rule By Jack Greiner & Darren W. Ford Is creating a hyperlink[1] to defamatory statements a republication under defamation law, and therefore not subject to the single publication defense? Until recently, courts answered this question in the negative.[2] But a recent Delaware Chancery Court decision broke ranks with these…
The Train Rolls On: First Circuit Allows Defamation Action by Railway Against Rail Industry Trade Publication to Continue
By Sigmund D. Schutz and Benjamin S. Piper The First Circuit Court of Appeals gave new life to a four-year-old defamation action brought by a railway against a rail industry trade publication. Pan Am Systems, Inc. et al. v. Hardenbergh. On October 9, the First Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part an order…
Second Circuit Affirms Fair Use Win for Google Books
Judge Leval’s Restatement of the Law of Fair Use By Jeff Hermes On October 16, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its long-awaited decision in Authors Guild v. Google, Inc., No. 13-4829 (“Google”). Affirming a ruling of the Southern District of New York, the Second Circuit held that Google’s digital…
Preparing for a Busy November
From the Executive Director’s Desk – Annual Dinner, Forum, and Planning Meetings; Plus: the Dinner Panelists Who Got Away Our wonderful London Conference already feels like the distant past as we prepare for our busiest week of the year, our mid-November series of meetings surrounding the MLRC’s Annual Dinner. The MLRC staff is humming as…
MediaLawLetter October 2015
Download Publication MLRC From the Executive Director’s DeskPreparing for a Busy November INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Second Circuit Affirms Fair Use Win for Google Books Judge Leval’s Restatement of the Law of Fair UseAuthors Guild v. Google, Inc. LIBEL & PRIVACY First Circuit Allows Defamation Action by Railway Against Rail Industry Trade Publication to ContinueThe Train Rolls…