First Amendment

If you don't know what the deal is with prior restraint, here, watch: [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn-kxUEySy0] There. Simple. Right? THE SUPREME COURT HAS ROUNDLY REJECTED PRIOR RESTRAINT! I wish I could just submit that clip to the next judge who even considers granting one. Just hold up a chromebook with...

This is a pretty familiar story line. A businessman wants to open a strip club. Some members of the local community decide that they do not want that kind of thing in their town. The resistance is usually faith-based (which is where the wheels really come off)....

I've been involved in the debate over whether we should criminalize "revenge porn." As much as I despise the practice, I don't agree with new criminal laws to punish it. In fact, I just spent some time on a panel at Stanford Law School, in the company of...

It's an all-too-common scenario: A blogger criticizes someone online, and then gets sued for his statements.   But two things make this case unique: First, the plaintiff sued because of the blogger's characterizations of him shooting two dogs at close range; second, the defendant blogger was in Florida - and...

By Reed Lee, Esq. Today rings in the 50th anniversary of the SCOTUS decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. In my view, this was the single most important free speech case the United States Supreme Court has ever decided. Alexander Mieklejohn described the Sullivan decision as "an occasion...

This is not a Star Trek order.  There are no pithy jokes here.  There is, however, a shocking exposé of just how insidious the government can be in coercing silence when you speak out against outdated, incorrect, and even dangerous "conventional wisdom." Cooksey v. Futrell, et al., Case No. 12-2084, 2013...

[caption id="attachment_18317" align="alignleft" width="175"] Nevada's Anti-SLAPP law, freshly signed. [/caption]You may have noticed that the writing has been a bit slow as of late. Well, one of the things that has been taking our attention away has been an all-hands effort up in Carson City, working on getting...

By Jay Wolman In a page out of Rakofsky vs. The Internet, it appears that one of the law firms and attorney groups frequently criticized as representing copyright trolls, Paul Duffy, John Steele, and Prenda Law, has gone on the offense against its critics. More details here: http://phillylawblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/prenda-law-john-steele-and-paul-duffy-file-suit-against-alan-cooper-his-lawyer-paul-goodfread-and-anonymous-john-does/ Here: http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2013/03/04/copyright-trolls-prenda-law-paul-duffy-and-john-steele-commence-three-lawsuits-v-paul-godfread-alan-cooper-and-our-community/ and here: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130303/23353022182/prenda-law-sues-critics-defamation.shtml copies of the...