Media Law Prof Blog

A. M. Rosenthal Dies

Read Robert D. McFadden's piece on A. M. Rosenthal in today's New York Times here.

Stern on Satellite

Read Howard Stern's opinions on the superiority of satellite radio and his lack of plans to return to traditional radio broadcasting here.

Warner Brothers Plans to Begin Distribution of Product Using BitTorrent

Warner Brothers has announced it will begin using BitTorrent's peer to peer technology to distribute movies and tv shows via the Internet in an attempt to attract viewers who might otherwise opt for illegal copies of its products. BitTorrent helped popularize the trading of such copies. Read more in Gary Gentile's article here. Read more about the deal between WB and BitTorrent in a press release here.

Julie Hilden on Stephen Colbert

Findlaw's Julie Hilden asks whether parodist Stephen Colbert crossed a line during his appearance at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner April 30th, and if so, where and why. Read her commentary here.

A Paper on Open Access

Pamela Bluh, University of Maryland School of Law, has published "`Open Access,'" Legal Publishing, and Online Repositories" in volume 34 of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. Here is the abstract.

This paper discusses the efforts of the Open Access movement to provide scientific and scholarly information over the Internet. The origin of the movement is described as are the benefits of free access to researchers in the scientific, technical and medical fields.

Download the paper from SSRN here.

A British Journalist on Checkbook Journalism

Roger Ratcliffe discusses paying for the story here, a quarter of a century after the way the media covered the Yorkshire Ripper's trial made headlines of its own.

Another Bite at the Apple

A British judge has ruled that Apple Computer has not infringed on a 1991 settlement between the computer maker and the Beatles' music label, Apple, in which Apple Computer agreed not to enter Apple Corps' "field of business" by using the music label's logo "in connection with musical content." The Apple label charged that the computer maker's popular downloading service infringed that agreement. But after Mr. Justice Mann, the presiding jurist, got a demonstration of downloading on his own iPod, and heard the arguments, he determined that Apple Computers uses the logo only with its online store and not with the downloads. Read more here in a story from the Guardian Unlimited and here from Market Watch.