Marina Petrova's blog

With subscription and advertising revenue dropping, the newspaper industry is in dire need of a new and - more importantly - sustainable business model. The Low-Profit Limited Liability Company (L3C), a novel hybrid business form combining a social mission with a for-profit entity, has been named by many as the solution to journalism's money problem. Back in February, Sally Duros argued that the L3C can save newspapers. Likewise, Free Press discussed the L3C on SaveTheNews.org. Then, in July, Andy Bromage reported that the Pulitzer Prize-winning newsweekly Point Reyes Light had already found salvation in the L3C.

As a result of this publicity, CMLP has been receiving a lot of inquiries from online media creators who would like to form an L3C. The business form is now extensively covered in our legal guide, including a detailed explanation of its tiered capital structure, state by state sections on how to form an L3C, and an overview of its advantages and disadvantages.   read more »

GateHouse Media, Inc., a publisher of local newspapers is suing That's Great News, LLC (TGN) in Illinois federal district court, claiming breach of contract and copyright infringement. (See our threat database entry for more background information on the case.) In the complaint, GateHouse alleged that TGN was selling plaques emblazoned with unauthorized reprints of GateHouse newspaper articles in violation of their Creative Commons licenses. As you may have guessed, TGN is in the business of selling fancy plaques displaying really "great news" about the people and companies featured in the local papers.

This isn't the first time GateHouse has been in a squabble over its Creative Commons-licensed content. The current case has spurred some speculation on why a plaintiff would want to sue under a theory of copyright infringement as well as one for breach of contract.   read more »

A North Carolina trial court recently ordered the editor of the local community blog Home in Henderson to turn over the names and addresses of six pseudonymous commenters who allegedly defamed former Vance County commissioner Thomas S. Hester, Jr. As the Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press noted, the court used a lower standard in determining whether to order disclosure than is common in cases of this kind. In a June 28 order, Superior Court Judge Howard E. Manning, Jr. determined that six of out of twenty anonymous comments about Hester were actionable and therefore concluded that Hester's interest in proceeding with the case overcame those commenters' qualified First Amendment right to speak anonymously.   read more »

Last week YouTube won a landmark victory against Viacom in NY federal court. YouTube successfully argued that it was protected from Viacom's copyright infringement claims by the "safe harbor" provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). As the New York Times noted, Google's subsidiary was entitled to a complete defense because it had removed about 100,000 infringing videos from its web site as soon as Viacom requested that it do so.

Viacom v. YouTube shows that Congress granted online service providers far-reaching immunity from copyright claims. No DMCA "safe harbor" corollary exists in the offline world, however. This discrepancy leads to some counter-intuitive results.

Take the case of YouTube Play, a well-publicized joint project between YouTube and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The organizers' goal is to seek out and display the most creative videos made in the past two years around the world. As of June 14, participants in YouTube Play are already submitting their works by uploading them on www.youtube.com/play. A panel of Guggenheim experts will then review the submissions and select about 200 pieces to be displayed on the YouTube Play Channel online. On October 21, the Guggenheim will screen a final selection of roughly 20 exceptionally artistic works in its New York, Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice locations simultaneously.   read more »

E-readers are spreading both in the U.S. and abroad. Last week the New York Times reported that the Kindle, previously available only on Amazon.com, will be sold in brick-and-mortar stores by Target. College students could grab one when they pick up their school supplies. A study at the Darden School of Business, reporting that 90 to 95 percent of MBA students in select Darden classes would recommend the Kindle DX as a personal reading device, suggests that this is likely to happen. In addition, by the end of the year, Borders will offer 10 different models of e-readers in its retail stores, including the more affordable Kobo and the Libre ($149 and $120 respectively).   read more »