UPDATE: Press Freedom in Burundi Staggered by Enactment of Repressive Media Law

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Proclaiming that the news media will be professionalized and that his war-torn nation will benefit from journalists being prohibited from inciting violence, Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza this week put into effect a repressive media law passed by the National Assembly last April (see "TUOL" post 4/5/13), according to reports by BBC News and BloombergBusinessWeek.com.

The new measure supplants a 2003 law and among its provisions, mandates journalists, irrespective of their professional experience, possess a university degree, compels reporters to disclose their confidential sources, bars reporting on issues, including public safety, national security, morality and the national economy, and subjects offenders to fines ranging from $2,000 to $6,000 and criminal penalties of up to a maximum life imprisonment.

Free press advocates, including New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists("CPJ") and Human Rights Watch ("HRW"), and France-based Reporters Without Borders ("RWB") all condemned the new law as a major setback to press freedom. Burundi is recovering from the aftermath of a decade-long civil war sparked by the assassination of its first democratically elected president that claimed more than 300,000 lives.

Nkurunziza, an insurgent leader during the civil war, was elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2010, though opposition leaders boycotted the most recent election. According to the BBC News report, the African nation's National Communication Council ("NCC") on May 31 imposed a one-month ban on an online forum of the Iwacu newspaper because the NCC claimed readers critical comments ran afoul of the law by endangering national unity.

"This is a black day for freedom on information in Burundi," proclaimed the RWB Web site.

Digital TV Streamer Asks Court to Dismiss Broadcast Networks Copyright Suit

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In a 31-page motion for summary judgment, digital tv streaming service Aereo has asked United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Alison Nathan to dismiss copyright infringement claims brought by commercial public broadcasters. 

In American Broadcasting Cos. et al v. Aereo (Case No. 1:12-cv-01540), Aereo, which is financially backed by media mogul Barry Diller (see "TUOL" post 8/14/12), argues the March 2012, copyright infringement suit brought by commercial broadcasters CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox should be dismissed following the networks' failure to persuade the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to overturn Judge Nathan's earlier ruling not to issue a permanent injunction against Aereo for allegedly violating the broadcasters' right to public performance of its programming by not securing a license from the networks.

Aereo, which digitally streams broadcasters' programming over the Internet one-on-one to subscribers' computers and Web-enabled devices, contends its transmission to individuals' miniature antennae is nonpublic and in any case, protected by the fair use defense to copyright infringement, as reported by BloombergBusinessWeek(www.businessweek.com) and the Hollywood Reporter's legal blog THR, Esq. The networks counter that Aereo capturing their over-the-air signals and transmitting its programming constitutes a public performance that infringes on their copyrights.

Ay carumba! Spanish Media Conglomerate Slashes 2,500 jobs

Image via WikipediaGrupo Prisa (Promotora de Informaciones, S.A.), the Spanish media giant that owns magazines, radio stations, television stations and newspapers, including El Pais, Spain's largest daily, will pare its worldwide work force of  14,000 by 18 percent, or 2,500 jobs, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

The employee layoffs, or despidos de empleados, will entail 2,000 jobs in Spain and another 500 positions in  Portugal and the U.S. combined.  Delaware-based Liberty Acquisitions Holdings Corp. acquired Grupo Prisa last November in a debt-reduction move

Ax-Wielding at BusinessWeek Not Over Yet

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Approximately a month before the debut of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the magazine has trimmed its editorial staff by 30, according to a report in today's New York Times.

Bloomberg L.P. purchased BusinessWeek in December 2009 (see "TUOL" post 10/14/09), a month after the financially strapped business journal roughly 25 percent of its staff of 400.  The latest round of layoffs purportedly is not a cost-savings measure, but rather, an attempt to curtail overlap with the content of Bloomberg News, which is little solace to those who were jettisoned.