http://onlinepublishinglaw.com Blog by the firm Jacobs deBrauwere LLP on all legal topics relating to online publishing. Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:03:42 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Anonymous blog posting is now the easy way to say how you really feel without any repercussions—or at least you may think. The First Amendment protects one’s right to speak, whether it be openly or anonymously, but it doesn’t give anyone, known or anonymous, a free pass to defame others. ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/think-before-you-post-dear-anonymous-blogger/ In what many see as yet another victory for Google and defeat for trademark advocates, American Airlines has settled its action against Google on undisclosed terms, with both sides paying their own legal fees. In a lawsuit filed in August 2007, American Airlines claimed that Google violated its trademark rights by ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/american-airlines-settles-its-action-against-google/ THE DRAMA BOOK SHOP PRESENTS . . . Protecting Confidential Sources: A Reporter’s and a Lawyer’s Perspective From Watergate and the Pentagon Papers to Iran-Contra and Abu Ghraib, journalists have used information from confidential sources to reveal illegal conduct by our government. It is vital to our democracy that we ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/panel-discussion-protecting-confidential-sources-protecting-confidential-sources/ A new New York State Appellate Division case drives home the point that our everyday exchanges of emails can constitute binding contracts, even for subject matter normally subject to the Statute of Frauds. Stevens v. Publicis, S.A. et al., (2008 NY Slip Op 02880) involved a three-year employment contract, under which ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/contracting-by-e-mail/ On April 3, the 9th Circuit handed down its eagerly awaited en banc decision in Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC, Nos. 04-56916, 04-57173, 2008 WL 879293 (9th Cir. April 3, 2008), holding that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not immunize defendant Roommates.com ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/9th-circuit-en-banc-decision-denies-roommatescom-section-230-immunity/ In an article on disputes between professional sports leagues and the media over sports blogging, The New York Times reports today that, notwithstanding the APSE’s agreement with MLB, other organizations and publications, like Hearst, Gannett, Sports Illustrated and, apparently, The New York Times itself, have continued to protest the MLB’s ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/whose-internet-is-it-anyway/ As each year’s baseball season approaches, around the same time that Spring Training is getting underway, Major League Baseball issues its requirements for media credentials. These are the terms to which reporters, photographers and bloggers must agree to gain access to baseball parks and otherwise cover the games or ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/take-me-out-to-the-website/ On March 17, the Supreme Court agreed to hear FCC v. Fox Television Stations, 07-582, the FCC’s appeal of the Second Circuit’s decision striking down the FCC’s new policy on fleeting expletives, as articulated in its findings against Fox and NBC for the fleeting expletives used by Bono, Cher and ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/supreme-court-takes-fleeting-expletives-case/ In an online defamation action, Global Royalties, Ltd. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, No. CV-07-0956-PHX-FJM, 2008 WL 565102 (D. Ariz. Feb. 28, 2008), the District Court of Arizona dismissed plaintiff Global Royalties, Ltd.’s amended complaint on the basis of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 states, "No provider ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/section-230-of-the-communications-decency-act-still-a-bar-to-suit-even-if-website-operator-is-on-notice-that-content-is-potentially-defamatory/ Rachel Ehrenfeld, a New York-based author against whom a Saudi Arabian resident and citizen obtained a default judgment in a “libel tourism” lawsuit filed in England, asserted a declaratory claim that the foreign judgment was not enforceable in New York State. Just last week, the Second Circuit held that ... http://onlinepublishinglaw.com/second-circuit-denies-american-author-relief-from-foreign-defamation-claim-on-the-basis-of-personal-jurisdiction-spurs-introduction-of-new-york-libel-tourism-bill/