Author Archives: Prof. K

Communications law basics

Posted on May 23, 2022 | Comments Off on Communications law basics

What are the essential basic things you should know about communications law?

The statue of Justice on the roof of the Old Bailey in London. (Charles D.P. Miller, Wikipedia, Creative Commons).

The reason we ask is that digital media has amplified personal communications, and, now more than ever, educated people need some general basic background in the law of communication. This is an outline for a short course module that can be used in college classes or by interested individuals.

This idea for a one-week (three lecture) short course is structured around three basic themes: Foundations of law, specific communications and media issues, and a few forward-looking legal and ethical questions.

Foundations of law

  1. Historical concepts in law, especially natural rights, equal justice and the marketplace of ideas.
  2. The First Amendment to the US Constitution and similar protections in international law.
  3. How the system of courts and legal precedent works in the US and other countries.

Specific issues in Communications and Media Law

  1. Do social media bans violate First Amendment rights?
  2. Violent images and hate speech: how have the US courts drawn the line? What about other democracies (Europe, Japan, India)?
  3. What is libel and how well does the law protect open debate about public people and institutions?
  4. What is invasion of privacy and how does the law try to balance individual protection against public rights?
  5. What laws regulate truth in advertising?
  6. Broadcasting: What was the Fairness Doctrine? Is there an argument for reinstating it?
  7. How does copyright law work? What is Creative Commons?
  8. How are competition laws (also called anti-trust laws in the US) being applied to social media companies in the US and in Europe?

Jurisprudence and ethics

  1. What ethical codes do we expect the news media to follow? Why?
  2. How do concepts of social responsibility conflict with libertarian views about free speech? 
  3. How does the structure of new digital media challenge traditional First Amendment jurisprudence and concepts like the marketplace of ideas? 

 

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Posted in Politics & media law

Hollywood star sues for ‘false light’

Posted on March 10, 2018 | Comments Off on Hollywood star sues for ‘false light’

Hollywood star Olivia de Havilland is suing FX network and Ryan Murphy Productions for “false light” over the way she is portrayed in a docudrama “Feud” that concerns a rivalry between two other stars, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.  Davis and Crawford are dead, but de Havilland, at age 101, is still very much alive.

“I believe in the right to free speech,” says de Havilland,   “but it certainly must not be abused by using it to protect published falsehoods or to improperly benefit from the use of someone’s name and reputation without their consent.

The suit raises the interesting question of how much a living historical figure can control what is said about them.   See: New York Times story March 3, 2018.

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Posted in Libel

Anniversary of Smith v Daily Mail

Posted on February 9, 2018 | Comments Off on Anniversary of Smith v Daily Mail

When should the names of juveniles accused of murder be made public? Forty years ago, under West Virginia state law, the answer was ‘never.’  It was illegal for a news organization to make public the name of anyone under 18  accused of a crime.

Generally there are good reasons for keeping the names of juvenile offenders private, including a better chance for rehabilitation.  But who has the duty to keep a name quiet? A newspaper? And would that be true for a teenager accused of murder, for which there is no chance of rehabilitation?

After a school shooting in 1977, editors of the West Virginia Daily Mail decided that a murder charge against  a 14 year old should be made public. A county prosecutor brought indictments against the paper’s employees for violating state law, and the paper fought the case to the US Supreme Court, which agreed that such state laws were unconstitutional prior restraints on the press in violation of the First Amendment.  The duty to keep a juvenile’s name confidential belonged to law enforcement, not the press, the court said.

See: Daily Mail editorial Feb 8, 2018  
Washington & Lee case summary

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Posted in Privacy

Libel laws don’t favor Roy Moore

Posted on November 20, 2017 | Comments Off on Libel laws don’t favor Roy Moore

Judge Roy Moore, the embattled Republican nominee for Alabama’s open U.S. Senate seat, must surely long for the good ole days, says Vincent R. Johnson,  a law professor at St. Mary’s University, in a Nov. 19 op-ed for the San Antonio Express-News. 

Until 1964, the American legal principles governing libel and slander were completely out of sync with the free speech and free press guarantees of the First Amendment.

First, a defamatory statement at that time was presumed to be false. The plaintiff did not have to prove falsity. Second, it made no difference how much care the speaker exercised. If the statement was false, strict liability was imposed. Third, certain statements were presumed to cause harm. Even if a plaintiff presented no evidence of actual losses, a jury could award a large amount of damages based simply on the nastiness of the utterance and the extent of its circulation.

All that changed with the 1964 New York Times v Sullivan case, Johnson notes.

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Posted in Uncategorized

FCC lifting rules on media concentration

Posted on November 17, 2017 | Comments Off on FCC lifting rules on media concentration

US & International Media Concentration

Depending on your point of view, the new broadcast station ownership rules issued  Nov. 16, 2017  by the Federal Communications Commission  will either increase market diversity by ridding us of antiquated rules,  or,  it will decrease diversity by helping large media companies grow even larger.

The new rules are part of a standard four-year review of broadcast ownership rules. They follow a pattern of deregulation since the Reagan era.      Continue reading →

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Posted in Uncategorized

A busy year for US libel lawyers

Posted on June 22, 2017 | Comments Off on A busy year for US libel lawyers

US First Amendment guarantees for freedom of speech and press are fairly straightforward  “black-letter law” — That is, they are so well settled in precedent  and statute that they are no longer subject to reasonable argument.

And yet, this year and last,  we have seen a raft of lawsuits apparently filed in the unlikely hope that the Trump administration’s dream of curtailing First Amendment rights will be endorsed by the courts. As Melissa Rosenberg of the Washington Post says:  “Billionaires want to enlist you in their secret plans to take down the press.”   For example:

Fake earthquake: Comedian John Oliver  was sued by coal company owner Bob Murray on June 21, 2017. The libel suit alleged that Oliver “meticulously planned attempt to assassinate the character  of … Mr. Murray.” (See Murray’s brief here).  Murray filed a similar lawsuit in April over a New York Times editorial.  (The Times response is here .)  In both cases, Continue reading →

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Posted in Libel, Politics & media law

Does anti-trust law apply to Google & Facebook?

Posted on April 23, 2017 | Comments Off on Does anti-trust law apply to Google & Facebook?

It may be time to think about breaking up the high-tech monopolies that dominate American telecommunication, says  Jonathan Taplin,  director emeritus of USC’s  Annenberg Innovation Lab in a New York Times article April 23, 2017.  Taplin is the author of “Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy.”

Taplin notes that Google has an 88 percent market share in search advertising, Facebook owns 77 percent of mobile social traffic and Amazon has a 74 percent share in the e-book market. “In classic economic terms, all three are monopolies,” Taplin says.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Uncategorized

Trump damaging press freedom worldwide

Posted on March 26, 2017 | Comments Off on Trump damaging press freedom worldwide

Turkish presidet Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warmly embraced Trump’s “fake news” concept.

US president Donald Trump’s unprecedented attack on freedom of the press is being used as an excuse for repressive policies worldwide, according to Reporters Without Frontiers, a global press advocacy group.

“Predators of press freedom have seized on the notion of ‘fake news’  to muzzle the media on the pretext of fighting false information,” the group said in a March 16, 2017  statement.

“By targeting journalists in this manner, the US president ended a longstanding American tradition of promoting freedom of expression and sent a powerful message to media censors.”

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Posted in Politics & media law

FAQ about Trump & the press

Posted on February 25, 2017 | Comments Off on FAQ about Trump & the press

EnemyQ: Donald Trump says the press is the “enemy of the people.”  How unusual is that?
A:  It is the first time anything like that idea has come from an American president. Historically,  the phrase “enemy of the people” is employed by dictators presiding over totalitarian states, such as Joseph Stalin in Russia or Mao Zedong in China.   It is also the title of an Henrik Ibsen play, but the central figure is a doctor who is concerned about water pollution at a local resort that is an economic mainstay of a small town.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Politics & media law

Video

Pray for the Press

Pope Francis says:  “I often wonder: How can media be put to the service of a culture of encounter.  We need information leading to compromise for the good of humanity and the planet.  Join me in this prayer request. That journalists, in carrying out their work, may always be motivated by respect for truth and a strong sense of ethics.”

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Posted on October 16, 2016 in Uncategorized