"Some major ISPs, like Cablevision, already practice strong net neutrality and for their broadband subscribers, the quality of Netflix and other streaming services is outstanding. But on other big ISPs, due to a lack of sufficient interconnectivity, Netflix performance has been constrained, subjecting consumers who pay a lot of money for high-speed Internet to high buffering rates, long wait times and poor video quality. A recent Wall Street Journal article chronicled this degradation using our public data."If you are interested at all in this subject, the short post is worth your time.
But the government can upset the Sullivan case’s delicate balance by aggressively shutting down avenues of inquiry, as the Obama administration has done to an extreme degree in prosecuting those suspected of leaking classified documents, and even seizing reporters’ records. Uninhibited and robust criticism can go only so far without meaningful access to information. Still, American press freedoms rank among the broadest in the world. Citizens and media organizations in countries from China to India to Britain do not enjoy the same protections. In many parts of the world, journalists are censored, harassed, imprisoned and worse, simply for doing their jobs and challenging or criticizing government officials. In this area of the law, at least, the United States remains a laudable example.In addition to shaping freedom of expression law as it relates to commercial speech, the case also dealt with libel law, a topic we'll spend some time on later this semester. In the mean time, what do you think of the celebration of American's protections for freedom of expression? Are US journalists as free today as the NYT proclaims?
Last summer, Liberation had a video of one of Lessig's lectures (called "Open," which is embedded above) taken down when the company found that he had used video clips with Phoenix's music in it. Lessig, in collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, challenged the takedown and sued Liberation, arguing that he was well within his right to use Phoenix's music under fair use policies. (Phoenix, for its part, wrote that it was happy to have its music remixed under fair use principles.)
Lessig teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to extract damages from Liberation under the DMCA's section 512(f), which requires copyright holders to pay damages if they overstep their bounds in issuing a takedown. As Ars noted last summer, hardly any copyright holders have ever had to pay damages under 512(f).
Lessig's and EFF's original complaint against Liberation ran down a long list of reasons why the Phoenix clips in Lessig's lecture should be considered fair use. Ars wrote at the time: “[Lessig] used a small proportion of the song, his lecture doesn't compete with the market for the song in any way, and the lecture is an entirely new creation. Phoenix wanted its song to entertain and make money; Lessig's lecture was educational, and neither he nor Creative Commons, the sponsor, made any profit."What is the significance of this ruling? Hopefully music labels will think twice before being over zealous in their take-down requests.
According to the Miami Herald, Patrick Snay, 69, was the headmaster at Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami for several years, but in 2010, the school didn’t renew his contract. Snay sued his former employer for age discrimination and won a settlement of $80,000 in November 2011. The agreement contained a standard confidentiality clause, prohibiting Snay or the school from talking about the case. However, Snay’s daughter, Dana, now at Boston College and a part-time Starbucks barista, couldn’t resist bragging about the case on Facebook. “Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver,” she wrote. “Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT.”