CMLP Staff's blog

We're pleased to announce that, on Friday April 9, 2010, the Citizen Media Law Project and Berkman's Cyberlaw Clinic are hosting a conference at Harvard Law School to celebrate the launch of the Online Media Legal Network (OMLN).  OMLN supports promising ventures and innovative thinkers in online and digital media by providing access to legal help that would otherwise be unavailable.   read more »

That feeling—as if a couple dozen voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. If you felt some similar disturbance in the force last week, you might be aware that Google pulled the plug on several MP3 blogs it had previously hosted on its Blogspot service. On Wednesday, The Daily Swarm reported that several prominent bloggers had found their blogs yanked from Google's service. The next day, Google responded with a "quick note", saying that it was merely enforcing its DMCA policy .

Ah, our longtime friend the DMCA. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act acts as a safe harbor for web hosts whose users infringe others' copyrights. So long as it engages the rights holder in a statutorily-choreographed dance (designated agent, signed notice of infringement, takedown, cha cha cha), the host is off the hook. This is fine as far as it goes and—let's be honest for a minute—many MP3 blogs do indeed post a lot of files that infringe copyrights. For these bloggers, the DMCA is unavailing—in fact, by promoting the material's removal rather than a copyright infringement suit against the host, the DMCA is (at least arguably) doing exactly what it was intended to do.   read more »

If you're a fan of high-tech gadgets or Internet drama, you might have noticed the brouhaha brewing at Engadget this week. Long known for its comment sections ranking just above the YouTube level on the scale of man's inhumanity to man, the site prompted a new wave of bile last week with its coverage of Apple's iPad announcement. After mocking the anti-Apple commenters failed to stop them, Engadget disabled its comments Monday.

This is all well and good, of course — it's up to Engadget to decide whether and how it will offer a commenting function. Some of the coverage of Engadget's decision, however, didn't quite get this right. Wired's Epicenter blog suggested that Engadget was forced to disable commenting completely in order to avoid legal liability for what its commenters posted. “The one thing publications can't do,” he wrote, “is edit comments.” Fortunately for online publishers of all stripes, Epicenter was mistaken. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“Section 230”) shields website operators who exercise normal editorial control over their users' content, and this includes editing the content of the comments themselves.   read more »

The Citizen Media Law Project is pleased to announce that its Online Media Legal Network (OMLN) is partnering with the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) to assist with freedom of information lawsuits and to provide online journalists with FOI information and assistance.  We are honored to join forces with NFOIC, a key player in the FOI field, and we look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship.

From the press release:   read more »

The Citizen Media Law Project is pleased to announce that its Online Media Legal Network (OMLN) is partnering with the Online News Association (ONA) in a joint effort to help innovative online journalism ventures meet their legal needs. We're honored to join forces with such a key player in the field and looking forward to a fruitful relationship.

From the press release:   read more »

As part of our legal guide series on Risks Associated with Publication, today CMLP published a guide to Publishing Product or Service Endorsements. 

The new legal guide section takes on the Federal Trade Commission's controversial "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising" (the "Guidelines") that took effect on December 1, 2009. The FTC Guidelines call for bloggers, Tweeters, Facebook users, and other online publishers to disclose "material connections" they have with companies whose products or services they endorse.  The Guidelines also say that bloggers may be held liable for making misleading or unsubstantiated claims about a product or service.   read more »

wOOt!  Yesterday, we received notification that the editors of the ABA Journal, the American Bar Association's eponymous publication and website, had named the Citizen Media Law Project Blog as one of the "100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers."

We are, of course, very flattered and want to thank the fantastic bloggers who week in and week out trudge (virtually, in most instances) down to CMLP HQ in Cambridge to produce the thrilling prose -- and copious Simpsons references -- that end up on these pages.  This distinguished list includes:

David Ardia
Sam Bayard
Arthur Bright
Helen Fu
Dan Gillmor
Kimberley Isbell
Michael Lindenberger
Andrew Moshirnia
Mary-Rose Papandrea
Marc Randazza
Eric Robinson
Wendy Seltzer

And a heartfelt thanks to YOU, our readers, who read, tweet, share, and comment on our posts. (Who loves ya, baby?)   read more »

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday (and some much needed down time after the big OMLN launch), it is likely that we won't be putting up any blog posts this week. We also will not be sending out our weekly newsletter, the Citizen Media Law Brief.  Things should be back to normal next week.

To stay up to date on what we are reading/discussing this week at the CMLP, follow us on Twitter.

We are delighted to announce the public launch of the Berkman Center's Online Media Legal Network (OMLN), a new pro bono (i.e., free!) initiative that connects lawyers and law school clinics from across the country with online journalists and digital media creators who need legal help. Lawyers participating in OMLN will provide qualifying online publishers with pro bono and reduced fee legal assistance on a broad range of legal issues, including business formation and governance, copyright licensing and fair use, employment and freelancer agreements, access to government information, pre-publication review of content, and representation in litigation.    read more »

On Monday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) heard oral argument in Fustolo v.Hollander, No. SJC-10485.  As you may recall, last month the Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP) joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLUM) and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association in submitting an amicus curiae brief urging the SJC to reverse a lower court's decision interpreting the state’s anti-SLAPP legislation.  Representing CMLP, Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic co-authored the brief.   read more »

On Thursday, the Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP) joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLUM) and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association in submitting an amicus curiae brief urging the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to reverse a lower court’s decision interpreting the state’s anti-SLAPP legislation.  Representing CMLP, Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic co-authored the brief.

The brief was filed in support of Freda Hollander, a party in Fustolo v. Hollander, No. SJC-10485.  The lawsuit involves allegations of defamation based on articles Hollander wrote for the Regional Review, a free local newspaper serving the North End community in Boston.  The articles in question reported on development activities planned by plaintiff Steven Fustolo and meetings of community groups that opposed his plans.  In response to Fustolo’s lawsuit, Hollander sought dismissal of the case under the Massachusetts anti-SLAPP law, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 59H.   read more »

Even though Glenn Beck has a prime spot on cable television to offer up his beliefs, it's sometimes quite hard to understand what his beliefs actually are.  For example, as Jon Stewart has pointed out, he believes we have the best healthcare in the world, except when he says it's a nightmare.  Or as Politico underscored, he believes that President Obama is a racist, but he doesn't believe that Obama doesn't like white people.

But if there's one thing Beck believes, it's that he didn't rape and murder a young girl in 1990.  And he's siccing his lawyers on a website that asks him — with tongue firmly placed in its virtual cheek — to deny it.   read more »

The Citizen Media Law Project today launched a cool new page that aggregates everything on our site relating to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("Section 230"), the important federal statute that protects operators of websites and other interactive computer services from liability for publishing the statements of third-parties.  

We've also added some detailed background on Section 230, links to our legal guide materials, and feeds showing recent legal threats from our database, CMLP blog posts, and news from other websites.  The page also has a list of outside resources and will soon host a compendium of Section 230's legislative history.

We hope that this new page will help our readers conveniently access the diverse and ever-increasing materials and commentary on our site and across the Web relating to Section 230 and provide useful context for understanding the statute and the debates surrounding it.

You can check out the new page here.

Over the past few weeks everyone at the CMLP and Harvard's Cyberlaw Clinic (with whom we share an office) has been focused on the question of what legal protections courts should apply to anonymous speech (see this post about our amicus participation in the Maxon v. Ottawa Publishing case).  When you are immersed in an issue like this, it is easy to forget how lucky we are to live in a country that has robust protections for speech.

In a post earlier this week, University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist reminds us that our neighbor to the north is grappling with this same issue, but has come up with a very different answer.  In his post, Geist reports that an Ontario court has ordered the operators of the right-wing Canadian forum site, FreeDominion.ca, to turn over personally identifying information for eight anonymous posters to the site.   read more »

Are you a lawyer interested in dealing with emerging legal issues relating to the intersection of law, journalism, and new media on the Internet?  Would you like to help online journalism and new media ventures meet their legal needs?  Do you want a stimulating yet laid back work environment?

The Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society is looking to hire a Staff Attorney/Resident Fellow to assist with the development of a pro bono network of media lawyers and law school clinics to support online journalism and new media startups. 

The position requires a Juris Doctor degree with admission to at least one state bar (and eligibility for admission on motion to the Massachusetts bar if you're not a Massachusetts lawyer) and a minimum of 3 years of legal-practice experience with a significant Internet, intellectual property, or media law focus.  Our offices are located at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, so you must be willing to work in Cambridge, MA.

We're really excited about this position and about bringing someone new on board to help with our work.  We're building a network of lawyers across the country who want to work on online media cases, and we need an extremely capable individual to take the lead in screening new cases and clients, maintaining relationships with clients and members of the network, and providing direct legal assistance to clients in collaboration with lawyers and law students in Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic.    read more »

Are you a law student interested in working on challenging legal issues relating to online speech and non-traditional journalism?  Are you looking for media and cyberlaw experience? Do you want to get involved with the Berkman Center community?  

The Citizen Media Law Project is seeking paid interns for part-time work during the spring semester and for full-time work over the summer.  Law students with media and/or cyberlaw experience, or a background in journalism, are especially encouraged to apply. 

Applicants should have a demonstrated interest in and enthusiasm for journalism, citizen media, or technology-related legal issues, along with excellent research and writing skills and the initiative and energy to see projects through to completion in a fast-moving environment.

Our offices are located at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, so spring interns must live in the Cambridge/Boston area, and summer interns must be willing to relocate to the area for the summer.

For more information on these positions and how to apply, visit our pages on academic year and summer internships.  Applications are being reviewed on a rolling basis, but we recommend that interested students apply as soon as possible.

We may be seeing the start of a trend in California, as one lawsuit regarding a review posted on the website Yelp.com settled last week just as a second case got underway.

San Francisco-based chiropractor Steven Biegel and his former patient, Christopher Norberg, have reportedly settled a lawsuit relating to a critical review that Norberg posted on Yelp.  Biegel commenced the lawsuit in February 2008, alleging that Norberg’s post wrongly accused Biegel of being dishonest and engaging in fraudulent billing practices.  The case – which has received considerable attention in recent weeks (including here and here) – involved claims of defamation and false light.  The parties were preparing for a trial in the coming months.

Published reports indicate that the parties reached a resolution last week, following a court-ordered mediation.  The settlement terms were not disclosed, but Norberg has replaced his post on Yelp.com with the following statement:   read more »

Looking to catch up on the latest legal happenings in the world of online and citizen media?   Or perhaps you just need something to fill your dreary Friday afternoons?  Now is the time to subscribe to the Citizen Media Law Project's weekly newsletter, the Citizen Media Law Brief. 

The Brief includes recent blog posts, media law news, legal threat entries, and other new content from the CMLP's website.  Better still, it's completely free and comes delivered every Friday to your email inbox.

Interested?  To subscribe, all you have to do is go here and enter the email address where you would like to receive it. Past issues of the Brief can be found on this page.

The following post was submitted by one our loyal readers, Theo Karantsalis.

A Web security standard compromised by security researchers exposed a weak link in the system that could give hackers access to PCs.

At risk: all E-commerce and online banking transactions.

Researchers said that they used 200 PlayStation 3 video game consoles to defeat Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, a security mechanism designed to prevent eavesdropping and guarantee Internet users that their connections are encrypted and safe.

"This break is major," said Karsten Nohl, a cryptography expert and a researcher at the University of Virginia,” via e-mail from his home in Germany. "It definitely is the most wide-scale attack, because anything short of patching all browsers in the world to not accept the certificates, there's nothing you can do to prevent it."

The team of security experts from the United States, Switzerland, and the Netherlands said at the 25^th annual Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, Germany on Dec. 30 that it took three days of computing time to defeat SSL security measures.

SSL is employed whenever a user points to an address that begins with "https://".

"Centrally-controlled top-down public-key infrastructures have always had problems,” said Philip R. Zimmermann, via e-mail from his home in California.  Zimmermann is a cryptography expert and creator of Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, an encryption program protects information. "That's why I designed PGP to not depend on them, and that's why PGP has done so well."   read more »

Like a storm coming over the horizon, the recent lawsuit filed by GateHouse Media against the New York Times Company, which operates Boston.com, has thrown the CMLP into disarray just as we were preparing to depart to warmer climes for the holidays.

For those who haven't yet heard about this case, here is a bit of background.  On December 22, 2008, GateHouse Media, which operates more than 375 newspapers and associated websites, filed a lawsuit against the New York Times Company in U.S. District Court in Massachussets, claiming, among other things, that headlines from -- and links to -- GateHouse content on Boston.com's "Your Town" sites constitute copyright and trademark infringement.  The New York Times, which owns the Boston Globe, operates local sites — currently in Newton, Needham, and Waltham, MA — that aggregate local content from the Globe, area blogs, and other newspaper websites, including GateHouse's Wicked Local websites.   read more »