Matt C. Sanchez's blog

The Hawaii legislature passed a reporters' shield bill Tuesday that will protect both traditional and non-traditional journalists from compelled disclosure of their confidential sources and information and materials obtained or prepared during the newsgathering process. In one sense, this shield bill is a positive step forward, as it expressly contemplates that online publishers carrying out journalistic functions will take advantage of its protections. On the other hand, the bill places too many limitations on the ability of non-traditional journalists to invoke its protection.

Section 621(b) of the bill allows anyone to claim the protection afforded to traditional journalists if that individual can show that:
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Earlier this month, some of the most creative and entertaining parody videos on the Web were pulled from YouTube over dubious copyright claims. The disputed works, known as the “shred” videos, are a series of parodies in which Finnish media artist Santeri Ojala overdubs performances of legendary guitarists such as Steve Vai, Carlos Santana, and Eric Clapton. Ojala replaces the audio tracks of the guitarists' performances with his own (intentionally) bad guitar playing.

Because Ojala is a skilled guitar player himself, the horrific sounds match closely with the guitar hero's hand and finger movements, which makes the videos that much more surreal. Other rock stars unwary enough to enter the screen during the guitarists' performances get similar treatment – in one notable clip, Ozzy Osbourne's clapping to the beat is reduced to a rhythmless patter that wouldn't have cut it in a backyard birthday celebration, much less a rock show.   read more »

Pocket Part, the Yale Law Journal's online companion, recently published an article proposing a take-down procedure for content it describes as "cyberbullying" -- essentially, online speech believed to be defamatory or harassing. The procedure would operate similarly to the DMCA takedown procedure (because that has worked so well), as ISPs would remove the content at issue after receiving a notice of its allegedly cyberbullying nature. In cases where ISPs were so warned, this proposal would strip the providers of their CDA 230 immunity from liability relating to third party content. As has been the case under the DMCA, this likely would lead providers to exercise caution by taking material down without question -- erasing valuable speech from the public dialogue.

Reprinting content from other information sources is one of the trickiest areas of communications law -- especially for bloggers and other publishers on the Internet, where the legal framework has yet to be established. InfoMean blog has a useful set of pointers to help publishers avoid infringement lawsuits when reprinting information.