Archive | Internet

Hazelwood: Some Remaining Questions

By on November 12, 2012 in First Amendment, Internet

As our great keynote speaker, panelists, and audience members discussed the 25-year history of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier last week, it became clear that there still is scholarly work that needs to be done in this important area of law.  Here are a few of the interesting questions raised at the conference:

What are the connections between school culture, student free expression, and civic engagement?

Are public school journalism programs being cut due to overall budget cuts?

What are the academic backgrounds of school media advisers, and do they matter?  Is a media adviser with a background in the humanities more likely to support student free expression than an adviser with a background in math or science? One audience member asked whether social studies teachers, who should care about civic engagement, should work with student journalists. Another person observed that teachers too often don’t work outside their subject-specific silos.

How are charter schools regulating the expressive activities of their students?  One of our panelists observed that charter schools are public schools that want to operate like private schools.  She said there are many examples of censorship by charter schools and of charter schools with no student media at all.  California has enacted a statute to prevent charter schools from denying their students’ constitutional rights.

What has been the impact of the nation’s political polarization on student free expression?

What, if anything, is left of Tinker?

What is online student speech, and what is offline student speech?  (Or, more eloquently, where is the schoolhouse gate?) How do and should courts differentiate between the two?

Keynote speaker Erwin Chemerinsky said the Supreme Court treats schools as authoritarian institutions – like prisons.  To what extent is the Court correct?  What does that mean for student free expression?

If you have other questions to share, please post a comment.  Thanks for the great conference, everyone!

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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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Interdisciplinary Lunch: Wikipedia as an Example of The Promises and Pitfalls of Peer-Produced Media

By on October 12, 2012 in Internet

On Friday, Oct. 26, 2012, we will host an “interdisciplinary lunch” open to faculty and graduate students from across the UNC system. The topic will be “Wikipedia as an Example of The Promises and Pitfalls of Peer-Produced Media.” Launched in January 2001, Wikipedia today is the world’s sixth-most-popular website, visited monthly by approximately 12 percent of all Internet users. Wikipedia wields enormous influence as a primary information source, but it is often subject to criticism because of the mutable nature of its content and its policies on “reliable sources” and “neutral point of view.” Issues surrounding Wikipedia include but certainly are not limited to the degree to which it advances the goals of free speech and the marketplace of ideas, how its content and editing policies affect the openness of the site, and whether academics should contribute more to Wikipedia.

The lunch will be held from noon to 1:15 p.m. on Friday, October 26 in the Halls of Fame Room on the first floor of Carroll Hall.  We will provide box lunches and drinks for those who register. All you need to bring is an inquiring mind.

To register to attend and receive a lunch, please go to our event listing.

Special thanks to Victoria “Tori” Ekstrand and Daren C. Brabham, assistant professors in the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication for the topic description and reading list.

 

 

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Law School for Digital Journalists: Wrapup

By on September 28, 2012 in Internet, Journalism

Last week, the Center for Media Law and Policy joined with the Online News Association, Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism to present a full-day of legal training for ONA members at the Online News Association’s 2012 conference in San Francisco.  The sessions, which we’ve been calling “Law School for Digital Journalists,” covered everything from launching a news business to dealing with defamation risks (a full list of the sessions is here).  Audio recordings, slides, and some video recordings are available here.

While we (Jon Hart, ONA’s general counsel, and I are the primary organizers) try to not to make it too much of a slog for the journalists who come, it’s a lot of ground to cover in a short period of time.  This year the attendance numbers were a bit lower than last year’s sessions at Harvard Law School and we noticed a thinning of the crowd as the day wore on (which meant that some people missed the fantastic plenary panel at the end of the day).  Because we had an amazing faculty for the sessions, including Anthony Falzone, deputy general counsel at Pinterest, Deirdre Sullivan, senior counsel at the New York Times, Karlene Goller, deputy general counsel at the Los Angeles Times, and Stuart Karle, chief operating officer for news at Thompson Reuters, I’m thinking that we simply tried to cover too much in one day.

So, if we do this again next year at ONA13 in Atlanta, what topics should we cover?  What do you think should be part of the essential legal training for digital journalists?

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