Internet Maven Abrams to Expand Online Publishing Empire

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeNBC News Chief Legal Analyst Dan Abrams, son of prominent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, buoyed by the success of media news Web site Mediaite and his four other Web properties, is expanding his digital publishing realm, according to a New York Times story.

The 44-year-old former MSNBC anchor next year will debut Mogulite, which sounds like a mutant race from H.G. Wells' Time Machine, but will be a Web site devoted to covering prominent business personalities. Also in the works are a job board site to compete against Mediabistro.com, and Mary Sue, a technology news Web site targeting women.

Besides Mediaite, Abrams presently is the online publisher of Sportsgrid, fashion and beauty site Styleite,  Gossip Cop and technology site Geekosystem. According to the Times article, the five sites combined generate more than 6.4 million views monthly. Abrams believes the sites could begin operating in the black early in 2011.

AOL: You've Got Merger!

Image via CrunchBaseNew York-based Internet Service Provider America Online may breakup and merge with Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, Inc., according to an exclusive story by Reuters News Service.

In Dec. 2009, AOL was spun off by entertainment conglomerate Time Warner to Time Warner shareholders. The Reuters article suggests that Yahoo has the resources to support AOL's display ad business. Neither entity would confirm the possible merger to Reuters.

High Court Tackles FOIA Exemption

Image via WikipediaThe U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week in Milner v. U.S. Dept. of the Navy (Case No. 09-1163) involving the breadth of Exemption 2 of the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") [5 U.S.C. sec. 552(b)(2)].

The appellant is seeking a reversal of the decision of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the Navy's refusal to turn over documents sought by Washington resident Glen Scott Milner. Milner requested safety maps and other pertinent data concerning the Indian Island Navy munitions storage facility near Port Hadlock on Puget Sound near his residence.

In denying Milner's FOIA request, the Navy cited Exemption 2, which allows government agencies to withhold documents involving an agency's personnel rules and practices.  Counsel for the appellant argued the plain language of Exemption 2 protects the narrow category of materials involving personnel policies and rulees and shouldn't be broadly construed as a "High 2" exemption shielding information, the disclosure of which "may risk circumvention of agency regulation," in contrast to a "Low 2" exemption that addresses employment issues.

Counsel for the  Dept. of the Navy protested that appellant was attempting to alter 30 years worth of accepted FOIA practice.  Although the High Court often sides with the government on FOIA matters, appellant found a receptive audience in Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Sotomayor and Scalia. Several news media organizations filed amicus briefs in support of Milner.

Favre MVP (Most Valuable Privates)? Gawker Paid $12k for Pix

Image via WikipediaIn a new low for checkbook journalism, Gawker Media coughed up $12,000 for photos of  41-year-old Minnesota Vikings QB Brett Favre's groin that the randy game-caller allegedly sent to a female employee of the New York Jets, Web site Business Insider reports.

Gawker head honcho Nick Denton boasted that the raunchy Favre post has attracted more than 4.9 milion pageviews. The photos of Favre, who apparently was trying to add to his N.F.L. record of most attempted passes in a broader sense, may have added to the value of Gawker's Deadspin Web site, but at the expense of journalistic credibility. Checkbook journalism, long-practiced by The National Enquirer and many so-called traditional news media, promotes lazy journalism, encourages sources to embellish tips for a higher payoff, and divides news outlets into haves (those who can pay) and have nots (those deprived of the "news").

The bought-and-paid-for Favre crotch photos should make everyone in the news business and John Sullivan (the Minnesota Vikings center from whom Favre takes his snaps) uncomfortable.

Nonprofit News Org. & J-School in Joint Venture

Image via WikipediaThe Explainer. Sounds like the title of a dull comic book superhero, but it is actually the name of a new joint venture by Pulitizer Prize-winning nonprofit investigative newsers ProPublica and New York University's Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism.

According to an item by mediabistro blog FishbowlNY, The Explainer will offer background information on current news topics through its Explainer.net Web site, ably assisted by ProPublica editors. Could be useful, but "TUOL" will reserve judgment pending further explanation.

Mass. Courts to Open Doors to New Media?

Image via WikipediaWith the blessings of the Judiciary-Media Committee, the Rules Committee of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ("SJC") has proposed amendments to SJC Rule 1:19 concerning cameras in the courtroom that would expand the use of a broader range of electronic technology.

The proposed revisions include re-christening Rule 1:19 Electronic Access to the Courts. More substantive changes involve allowing live blogging in the courtroom and the use of laptops and smartphones.  Those covering the courts, be they online journalists, traditional print and broadcast journalists or bloggers, would be required under the rule change to register with the Court's Public Information Office and sign a declaration agreeing to abide by coverage restrictions, such as not photographing or recording on video jurors, sidebar conferences, or juvenile proceedings.

To the present allowance of one "pool" video camera and one "still" camera, the proposed amendments would add a third pool camera for bloggers and other non-mainstream journalists.  The SJC is soliciting comments on the proposed revisions due on or before January 28, 2011.

Sports Mechanics: 'RoboScribe' Grapples With Play-by-Play Lingo

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeStatSheet, a three-year-old North Carolina company whose Web site provides statistical analysis for several sports has ginned up its statistics software to generate articles about college basketball games, The New York Times reports.

Fans used to visiting www.StatSheet.com to get the numbers breakdown on Nascar, college football, college basketball and the like now can click onto the StatSheet Network, which offers separate Web sites for each of the 345 NCAA Division 1 men's basketball teams. Once there, thanks to "automated content," the fans can read entirely software-generated write-ups of the team's games. Every team's StatSheet Web site has its own Web address (http://statsheet.com/#websites).

The article-producing software consists of template sentences and a database of roughly 5,000 phrases and numbers. The software has problems creating complex sentences, just like most sportswriters, but drinks less.

As if journalists didn't face enough challenges in this job market.

Portable Playboy: Pleasure in Your Pocket?

Image via WikipediaThe Los Angeles Times reports that for about $300, you can own every issue from 1953 to 2010 of Playboy magazine on a 250GB drive that the magazine claims will fit "inside a briefcase or jacket pocket." Thankfully, not a pants pocket.

The men's magazine partnered with Bondi Digital Publishing to release 650 issues on a USB hard drive. Rolling Stone, National Geographic and the New Yorker are among periodicals that have created digital archives with Bondi.

Playboy on a hard drive. The vigilant staff of "TUOL" has never encountered a straight line it didn't like.

UPDATE: Last Call for Va. College Papers on Alcohol Ad Ban

Image via WikipediaIn Educational Media Co. v. Swecker (Docket No. 10-278), the U. S. Supreme Court Monday declined to hear an appeal by the Va. chapter of the ACLU on behalf of two college newspapers in the Commonwealth regarding alcohol advertisement restrictions, according to an Associated Press report.

The High Court decision lets stand the 2-1 vote of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Case No. 08-1798) that upheld the validity of Va. Alcohol Beverage Control Regulations [3 Va. Admin. Code secs. 5-20-40(A) & (B)(3)] that prohibit use of the term happy hour, forbid references to specific alcoholic beverages and ban beer, wine and mixed drink advertisements in student-run publications, except in the context of restaurant ads. [See "TUOL" post 8/24/10.]

Both The Cavalier Daily and The Collegiate Times challenged the ban on the non-deceptive ads on First Amendment grounds, arguing that they lost roughly $30,000 in ad revenue because of the proscription. Instead of  "bottoms up," their appeal has bottomed out.

Palin Publisher Prevails--Putsdown Pugnacious Poster

Image via WikipediaIn HarperCollins, LLC v. Gawker Media LLC (Case No. 10 Civ.-8782), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York this week sided with the publisher of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's second tome, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag, against the Gawker blog that published unauthorized excerpts.

The court ordered Gawker to take down the posted excerpts pending a Nov. 30 hearing, but the parties have since settled the dispute, with Gawker promising to keep the Palindrones off its site. The book was released--to bookstores, not the Alaska wild--on Nov. 23.

Gawker had alleged its posting of the Palin segments was protected fair use, a dubious position given the U.S. Supreme Court 1986 decision in Harper & Row Pub. v. The Nation Enterprises (471 U.S. 539), which involved the defendant's pre-publication lifting of roughly  300 words of verbatim quotes from former President Gerald Ford's memoirs. The High Court rejected the fair use defense in the case involving Ford, who like Palin, never served a full-term in office, though through no fault of his own.

Calif. High Court Gives SF Weekly Owner the Golden Gate

Image via WikipediaThe California Supreme Court this week refused to hear the appeal of Village Voice Media Holdings-owned SF Weekly's adverse ruling in the antitrust suit brought by rival weekly Bay Guardian, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfgate.com).

With only one of the seven-member high court willing to hear the appeal in Bay Guardian v. New Times Media (Case No. S186497), the $21 million judgment against the defendant for attempting to shut down the Bay Guardian by selling its own ad space below cost.  The California Supreme Court rejected the defendant's argument that its low advertising rate constituted legitimate business competition that was a boon to local businesses.

Both the Bay Guardian and SF Weekly are free publications heavily reliant on advertising revenue for their existence. In 2008, a jury found for the homegrown Bay Guardian, awarding $6.2 million in damages against the defendant for illegal predatory pricing (114 Cal. Rptr. 3d 392 (2008)). The verdict was upped to $16 million by the trial judge pursuant to antitrust law penalties, and interest accrued brought the total award to $21 million.  An appeals court subsequently allowed the Bay Guardian to collect half of SF Weekly's ad revenue in partial satisfaction of the judgment.

Social Network Seeks 'Face' Time at Trademark Office

Image via CrunchBaseThe U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has issued a notice of allowance on Palo Alto, Calif.-based social media giant Facebook's December 2005, application to the USPO to trademark the word face.

Facebook must cough up a $100 fee to USPO and may either request up to a 36-month extension or prove within the next six months that it uses the face trademark, according to a report by the Canadian Broadcast Corp. News. In filing a statement of use, Facebook would have to show that beyond the use of the word in its domain name, that it actually employs face on products in commerce, according to the TechCrunch Web site. No opposition was filed to the Facebook proposed trademark.

Were face to be trademarked,  Facebook would  be unable to restrict the use of the term in ordinary commerce unrelated to Facebook's business of providing telecommunications services, such as chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards, according to a Daily Mail story.  It remains to be seen whether face, a generic term, will be trademarked.

Facebook is not one to play favorites among its syllables, and has recently gone on the warpath against entities that use book in their name. Online teacher community Teachbook.com, for example, was targeted by Facebook recently in a trademark infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Facebook, Inc. v. Teachbook.com, LLC, Case No. CV10-03654).

Oops... She Lost It Again!

Cover via AmazonLynne Irene Spears, pop chanteuse Britney Spears' mama, may believe her daughter's former manager, Sam Lufti, is Overprotected, Lucky, Crazy and Toxic, but it's too soon to Turn Off the Lights on his defamation suit.

Spears was unable to convince a California appellate court to adopt the "libel-proof" defense, according to a story in the weekly Beverly Hills Courier, so Lufti's defamation suit against her based on her 2008 book, Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World will proceed.

Lufti filed suit on Feb. 3, 2009, in Los Angeles County Superior Court. His 15-page complaint, Sam Lufti v. Lynne Irene Spears, James Parnell Spears, Britney Spears, et al (Case No. BC406904) included counts alleging defamation, libel, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract and quantum meruit. In August of last year, Superior Court Judge Zaven V. Sinanian denied Lynne Spears' motion to dismiss the defamation claim on the grounds that her statements constituted protected speech, ruling that the passages targeted in her book by Lufti, if proven false, sufficiently supported a defamation claim.

Spears appealed the ruling to the California Second District Court of Appeal (Case No. B218211), saying remarks about the plaintiff in her book, including calling him "shifty," a "predator," and a "fake" who was "planning evil" by isolating Britney from her family through actions such as throwing away the pop diva's phone chargers and disabling her house phones, were not defamatory because Lufti is "libel-proof."

The idea behind the defense, which has not been accepted in any California case law, is that an individual's reputation already is so sullied that the individual can't be defamed by attacks on his/her character.  It has been applied in other jurisdictions, including "TUOL"'s own Massachusetts, in the case of Jackson v. Longscope, 394 Mass. 577 (1985), in which the court found the plaintiff, a convicted rapist/murderer who sued for libel over accusations that he had carnal relations with victims after he killed them, had such a bad reputation that he couldn't be libeled.  Conventional wisdom considers rock star managers generally at least slightly higher on the food chain than necrophiliac killers. The three-judge appellate panel wasn't buying it, so Lufti's defamation claim remains on-track for trial.

"TUOL" appreciates readers' concerns regarding his over-familiarity with Britney Spears' discography.

Chicago Financial News Service Feeling Not So 'Hot' Over Copyright Infringement

Image via CrunchBaseDow Jones & Co. has received undisclosed, but "substantial" damages from Briefing.com, a Chicago-based financial news Web site that admittedly infringed on Dow Jones' copyrighted material and violated the "hot news" doctrine, according to a Dow Jones news release.

Dow Jones, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. empire, sued Briefing.com in April 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Case No. 10-03321). The defendant conceded that it infringed on roughly 100 copyrighted articles and 70 headlines of the plaintiff during a two-week stretch.

 As part of the resolution of the case, Briefing.com accepted a permanent injunction against any further infringing on Dow Jones' articles and agreed to provide the plaintiff free access to its Web site so that it may monitored to prevent further violations.  Briefing.com further admitted to violating the "hot news" doctrine, which prohibits continuously republishing a news organization's time-sensitive news articles.  The proposed settlement is awaiting approval from the Court.

Court Mouthpiece Catches Flak

Image via WikipediaAn eight-year veteran spokesperson for Los Angeles County Superior Court has been terminated for what he claim are untrue accusations that he leaked information to celebrity gadfly, www.TMZ.com

According to a story in The Los Angeles Times, Allan Parachini claims his purported link to TMZ is a smokescreen for the actual reason for his dismissal--ongoing tension involving himself and judges and court administrators who were reluctant to produce documents requested by media organizations that Parachini contends the journalists were entitled to receive.

Parachini, a former LA Times scribe who also worked for the ACLU, exacerbated the rumors that he was a source for TMZ by hiring former TMZ reporter Vania Stuelp to be his deputy. She has since returned to TMZ after budget constraints eliminated her post as Parachini's second-in-command. Parachini alleges he didn't endear himself to superiors because of his outspoken support for cameras in the courtroom.

Parchini's whistleblowing is self-serving as it came about after unsuccessful efforts to hammer out a severance agreement with his former employer. Nevertheless, "TUOL" has encountered court personnel and judges whose goal of achieving "pure justice" in a vacuum skews their attitude toward the news media and makes them partial to the U.S. Constitution's  Sixth Amendment over the First Amendment.

Whither COICA?

Image via WikipediaAlthough the Senate Judiciary Committee last week by a 19-0 vote resoundingly gave its blessings to the Combatting Online Infringement & Counterfeit Act ("COICA"), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said: "Deploying this statute to combat online copyright infringement seems almost like a bunker buster cluster bomb when what you really need is a precision guided missile."

As reported by Jurist (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu),  the bill, which would amend Chapter 13 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code by adding Sec. 2324 Internet Sites Dedicated to Infringing Activities, would enable the Attorney General to seek injunctions against both domestic and international copyright-infringing Web sites. Wyden fears the measure could lead to Internet censorship, a position supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The EFF says COICA would affect non-infringing online content, including political speech by interfering with the Internet's Domain Name System that translates site names into IP addresses used by computers to communicate.  The EFF claims COICA would create a "blacklist" of  censored domains.

Dems Defeat Defund NPR Bill Advanced by GOP

Image by wstera2 via FlickrAging '60s rockers and folkies eager to perform at fundraiser retrospectives and those in the market for a new tote bag are breathing easier today as House Democrats beat back a measure to eliminate government funding of NPR by a vote of 239-171, according to the Web site The Wrap (www.thewrap.com).

Fueled by NPR's recent dismissal of conservative commentator Juan Williams, GOP Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R.-Va.) introduced the bill to halt federal funding of NPR, which drew unanimous GOP support and three Democrats.  NPR, a nonprofit news organization, reacted to the vote, praising the House's "good judgment" for quashing the effort "to assert government control over the content of news."

But, All Things Considered, NPR may not be out of the woods yet.  The bipartisan National Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, charged with recommending ways to slash the federal budget, has suggested shutting off the federal spigot to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting--NPR and PBS, that is.

With Bristol Palin still hoofing her away into the hearts of Americans, the NPR vote has not been the Talk of the Nation.

Freedom: Just Another Word for Media Outlets to Sell

Image via WikipediaEight television stations and 100 newspapers, including flagship Orange County Register, owned by Irvine, Calif.-based Freedom Communications, Inc., are attracting suitors, according to an Associated Press story.

Freedom Communications, which emerged  in April from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed in September 2009, would not identify any potential buyers.

Google to U.K.: Sorry Old Chaps About Street View

Image by freefotouk via FlickrPersonal data culled from citizens of Great Britain by Google's Street View force will be destroyed, according to the Associated Press.

The U.K.'s Information Commissioner exacted a pledge from Google that its employees would receive better data protection training and that each of its new projects would generate a  privacy document.  The Mountainview, Calif.-based Internet search giant claims it inadvertently accumulated passwords and other personal information via unsecured wireless networks during its efforts to produce three-dimensional city maps worldwide.

Numerous nations, including Canada, Australia and the Czech Republic have clashed with Google over the Street View privacy breach. (See "TUOL" posts on 10/20/10, 9/22/10, 7/9/10.)

Facebook & Lamebook Poking Each Other in Tex. & Calif. Federal Courts

Image via WikipediaFacebook has filed a 10-count trademark infringement suit against Lamebook in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California  (Facebook, Inc. v. Lamebook, LLC, Case No. CV-10-5048), less than a week after Lamebook filed a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment against the social network behemoth in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Lamebook, LLC v. Facebook, Inc., Case No. 1:10-cv-00833).


In its 19-page complaint, Facebook alleges, among other claims,  federal trademark dilution [15 U.S.C. sec. 1125], trademark infringement [15 U.S.C. sec. 1114], false designation of origin, unfair competition, and violation of the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act [15 U.S.C. sec. 1125(D)]. As reported by www.law.com, Facebook challenges Lamebook's claim that its Web site warrants 1st Amendment protection as parody and satire, countering that Lamebook is a for-profit venture whose appearance is nearly identical to Facebook's and being used to lure advertisers.


In its 7-page complaint, Lamebook is asking a federal judge in Austin to find that it is a parody of  Facebook's "best & worst posts" and does not dilute or infringe on Facebook's trademark, pursuant to the Lanham Act [15 U.S.C. sec. 1051 et seq.]. Before their respective race to the courthouse, the two sides were engaged in discussions to resolve the dispute.

Although parody is a protected  form of expression under the First Amendment, it's a tricky obstacle course to navigate because the purveyor of the parody must in its work make readers or viewers think about the original work while at the same time conveying to the readers/viewers that it is a humorous vehicle in no way connected to the original work.


The Lamebook Web site invites visitors to contribute to its legal fund. "TUOL" wonders how many active federal lawsuits it takes before parties "de-friend" each other.