Digital Media and Data Privacy Law Blog

Last week, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear an important case involving Virginia's public records law.  The case, McBurney v. Young, involves a challenge to a provision of the state law that says that "public records shall be open to inspection and copying by any citizens of the Commonwealth . . . " (emphasis added).  In other words, citizens of another state need not apply.

A challenge to this provision limiting the availability of public records to Virginia citizens was brought by, among other plaintiffs, a citizen of Rhode Island who used to live in Virginia and had his ... Read More 

A recent Idaho state court opinion ordering an Idaho newspaper to unmask the identity of an anonymous commenter on the newspaper's website demonstrates, among other things, the pitfalls that come with a clumsily worded retraction.

The case, Jacobson v. Doe, arose from a blog entry posted in February 2012 on the Spokesman-Review's website about Tina Jacobson, the chair of the county Republican Central Committee.  The post included a picture of Jacobson posing with then-Presidential candidate Rick Santorum and other local Republicans.  In an anonymous comment to the story, a ... Read More 

North Carolina Superior Court Judge Howard Manning recently ruled on the scope of protection for documents related to the highly-publicized investigation of irregularities in the University of North Carolina football program. The Court held that the majority of communications among attorneys are protected from disclosure, but that other categories of investigative documents must be disclosed as public records of a public agency. The Court also ruled that portions of former UNC football coach Butch Davis’ personal cell phone records must be disclosed.  The Court's rulings ... Read More 

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in favor of broadcasters and content owners against the streaming service ivi, which previously captured and retransmitted broadcast programming over the Internet. The Second Circuit held that ivi is not a cable system and therefore is not entitled to the cable statutory copyright license under Section 111 of the Copyright Act.

Broadcasters initiated the lawsuit alleging that ivi violated the Copyright Act by streaming broadcast programming live over the Internet without consent. ivi argued that it was an online cable ... Read More 

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court released during the last week of its 2011 term its long-awaited opinion in the broadcast indecency cases FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. and FCC v. ABC, Inc. This decision represents an important victory for broadcasters, but, as explained below, leaves several important questions unresolved.

Background

The Fox case arose from the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards shows, in which Cher used the F-word during the live broadcast of the 2002 show and Nicole Richie used both the F-word and the S-word during the 2003 show. Its ... Read More 

A California court recently ruled that a lawsuit in which a group representing deaf citizens contended that CNN must provide captioning for videos uploaded to its website may proceed.  The group, The Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, brought suit under the California's Unruh Civil Rights Act and the California Disabled Person's Act.  The court's decision is available here.

CNN responded to the suit by moving to dismiss under California's Anti-SLAPP statute, Section 425.16 of the California Code of Civil Procedure, contending that the claims arise from its ... Read More 

Last week, a federal court based in California issued a surprising and sure to be controversial decision finding the Communication Act’s ban on the airing of political and issue advertisements by public broadcasters to be a violation of their First Amendment rights.  The decision is available here.  By a two-to-one majority, the court held that the ban on all paid public issue and political speech by public broadcasters is an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech because the statute permits paid promotional messages by non-profit advertisers on these same ... Read More 

The primary election in North Carolina is Tuesday, May 8, 2012, with a second primary (if needed) being either June 26 or July 17. The second primary will be June 26 if no second primary is needed for U.S. Representative races and it will be July 17 if there is a second primary for those federal races.  Since there are a number of multi-candidate primaries in the Congressional races, odds are that the second primary will be July 17. If no candidate receives 40% of the vote in the first primary, the second-place finisher can, but doesn't have to, call for a second primary.

We have covered disputes ... Read More 

In the final hours of the last business day before the Super Bowl, the Chief of the FCC's Media Bureau released an order denying the "reasonable access" complaint of Randall Terry against a Chicago television station.

Terry's campaign had been seeking to place ad buys on stations around the country leading up to and during the game.  He claimed he was a "legally qualified candidate" for the Democratic nomination for President. The ads featured disturbing images of aborted fetuses that would be potentially disturbing to some audiences.

As we wrote previously, a "legally ... Read More 

In a decision released this week, a panel of the Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision of the Eastern District of Virginia holding that a photojournalist had no claim under the federal Privacy Protection Act for a search of the journalist’s home conducted pursuant to a warrant, where law officers had  probable cause to believe the journalist was involved in a crime.

The plaintiff in Sennett v. U.S., No. 11-1421 (4th Cir. Jan. 30, 2012), was a photojournalist who routinely covered protests, political demonstrations, and acts of “grassroots activism” and published her ... Read More