Media Law Prof Blog

The Printable Gun

The New York Times investigates the use of 3D printers to make guns at home. Check out the process here.

A New Book On Famous Press Cases From a First Amendment Lawyer

James C. Goodale, former Chief Counsel and Vice Chairman at the New York Times, has published Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Trials (CUNY Press). It is scheduled for release April 30.

 

The Importance of the First Sale Doctrine

The New York TImes on the Kirtsaeng v. Wiley case here.

Ad Agency Fires Employees Responsible For Those Ford Cartoons

The other shoe has dropped with regard to those cartoon ads featuring women tied up in the back of a Ford. The ad agency responsible for the ads, none of which were actually okayed for publication, has fired some of the employees involved in creating the images. Both the car company and the ad agency have apologized profusely for the cartoons, which were leaked online.

Leading Library Journal's Editorial Board Resigns Over Publisher's Copyright Policy

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the editorial board of the Journal of Library Adminstration, a leading publication in the area of library management, has resigned en masse over the publisher's copyright policy. The now former editor, Damon Jaggers, notes that Taylor and Francis, the publisher of the journal, did negotiate with reluctant authors who objected to its previous policy, but the new policy requires potential authors to ante up $3,000 to publish with the journal.  

Science Blogs reproduces the editorial board's resignation announcement here, along with some commentary. Below is the notification from the board.

The Board believes that the licensing terms in the Taylor & Francis author agreement are too restrictive and out-of-step with the expectations of authors in the LIS community.

A large and growing number of current and potential authors to JLA have pushed back on the licensing terms included in the Taylor & Francis author agreement. Several authors have refused to publish with the journal under the current licensing terms.

Authors find the author agreement unclear and too restrictive and have repeatedly requested some form of Creative Commons license in its place.

After much discussion, the only alternative presented by Taylor & Francis tied a less restrictive license to a $2995 per article fee to be paid by the
Author. As you know, this is not a viable licensing option for authors from the LIS community who are generally not conducting research under large grants.

Thus, the Board came to the conclusion that it is not possible to produce a quality journal under the current licensing terms offered by Taylor & Francis and chose to collectively resign.

 

Anthony Lewis, NYT Journalist, Dies At 85

Anthony Lewis, the noted New York TImes journalist, has died. Mr. Lewis won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work reporting on the work of the Supreme Court. He published a number of books including the influential Gideon's Trumpet, which explained the important case Gideon v. Wainwright, and which was made into a film which starred Henry Fonda. More here from Adam Liptak's obit from the Times, which explains Mr. Lewis's influence on readers and journalists, and Mr. Lewis's own assessment of judicial opinons and evolution of the law. Additional coverage here from Boston.com, and here from NPR.org.

Freedom of Speech in the Romanian Legal Regime

Doru Costea has published Freedom of Speech Public Versus Private Theoretical and Practical Aspects Referring to the Newest Regulations of the Civil Code Regarding Freedom of Speech. Here is the abstract.

The first express regulation regarding the freedom of speech and consequently relating to the press appeared along with the Civil Code, which came into force on 1.10.2011. 

Although the Romanian Constitution of 1990 mentioned by art. 30 paragraph 8 that press offences are set by a special law, this law appeared just along with the enforcement of the new Civil Code (1st of October 2011), which includes special regulations to what concerns the press, at art. 70-80.

The full text is not available from SSRN.