Archive | First Amendment

Clearing the Haze Over Hazelwood: Student Speech Rights in the Digital Age

By on November 7, 2012 in First Amendment

Tomorrow, with our friends at the Student Press Law Center, First Amendment Law Review and North Carolina Scholastic Media Association, the center will kick off a two-day conference focused on student speech rights and their role in youth civic engagement.  The event, which is entitled “One Generation Under Hazelwood: A 25-Year Retrospective,” will examine the impact of Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, the Supreme Court’s only ruling addressing the rights of high school journalists.

The team that organized the conference (Tabitha Messick, Whitney Nebolisa, Monica Hill, and Frank LoMonte) have done an amazing job bringing together the leading scholars and thinkers on the subject of student speech rights, including Erwin Chemerinsky, who will be the keynote speaker. You can see the schedule for the two days here.  But don’t fret if you can’t make it in person, UNC’s IT folks will be live streaming the sessions and the Twitter hashtag is #Hazelwood25, if you want to follow along.

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Best New Internet Law Books?

By on October 31, 2012 in Copyright, First Amendment, Internet, Privacy

Each fall I informally survey my media law colleagues and former Ph.D. students in search of great, new books to assign for my Internet law class.  The class is a mix of UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication undergraduates who already have completed a basic media law class and graduate students.  I’m looking for books that are focused on law and policy issues and that are enjoyable to read.  The latter criterion is important because I’m trying to show students how much fun it can be to study law, especially Internet law.

These are the books reported in this fall’s survey that might fit my criteria, although I haven’t yet looked at them closely enough to assess whether they will be enjoyable to read.

  • Hector Postigo, The Digital Rights Movement: The Role of Technology in Subverting Digital Copyright (2012).
  • Robert Levine, Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back (2012).
  • Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola, Creative License:  The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling (2011).
  • Rebecca MacKinnon, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom (2012).

This is a book that was suggested that sounds good but probably doesn’t have enough law for my purposes:

  • Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman, Networked:  The New Social Operating System (2012).

These are the books I assigned last year:

  • Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu, Who Controls the Internet?  Illusions of a Borderless World (2006). (This is getting dated but provides valuable background on a number of issues.)
  • Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture:  The Nature and Future of Creativity (2004). (When my student read this they begin to get excited about studying law.)
  • Daniel J. Solove, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet (2007).
  • Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Googlization of Everything (2011).

I also have used these books in the past, with good results:

  • Dawn C. Nunziato, Virtual Freedom:  Net Neutrality and Free Speech in the Internet Age (2009).
  • Lawrence Lessig, Remix:  Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (2008).

Does anyone have any additional suggestions?  Any comments on these books?  Thanks!

 

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Kill Switches, Smart Mobs, and Freedom of Speech

By on October 24, 2012 in First Amendment, Internet

As part of the Mary Junck Research Colloquium series, Elon University School of Law Professor Enrique Armijo will give a talk at UNC entitled “Recent Developments in Digital Communications Law and Policy:
Kill Switches, Smart Mobs, and Freedom of Speech.”  He will share his current research on the ways in which government control over communications infrastructure can pose a threat to free speech and discuss the tension between regulation of social media and freedom of expression both domestically and abroad.  He will talk about his work on international media law reform projects in Africa and the Middle East and discuss his approaches for developing research interests into projects.

Armijo is a graduate of the UNC School of Law.  You can read more about him at http://www.elon.edu/e-web/law/faculty/armijo_enrique.xhtml.

The presentation will be from 2 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. in the Freedom Forum Conference Center on the third floor of Carroll Hall.   The event is free and open to the public.

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First Amendment Day

By on October 1, 2012 in First Amendment

UNC will celebrate its fourth-annual First Amendment Day on Tuesday, Oct. 2.  The celebration is organized by the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy with generous funding from Time Warner Cable.  Activities range from a reading of banned books, including Chancellor Holden Thorp reading from The Catcher in the Rye, to a First Amendment trivia contest at Linda’s Bar & Grill.  The full schedule of events is here:  http://firstamendmentday.unc.edu.

Come out and join in the fun!

 

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Twitter and Free Speech

By on September 3, 2012 in First Amendment

Today’s New York Times has a very flattering (but well deserved) profile of Alexander Macgillivray, Twitter’s “chief lawyer.”  It notes Twitter’s efforts to protect Free Speech and remarks that the company thinks this will give it an edge over its rivals.  That’s one of the reasons I use Twitter — and stay away from Facebook, as much as I can — but this competitive advantage argument only works if companies are transparent about what they are doing (re: subpoenas, etc.) and people actually care enough to make that a factor in choosing an online service. I’m not quite so sanguine that either is the case today.

In any event, the profile is worth a read.

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