Archive for ‘Current Events’

The Associated Press reports, in a Houston Chronicle story this week, that an Oklahoma monument that includes the Ten Commandments has been deemed constitutional (not violative of the First Amendment). Based on the story’s description of the collection of monuments involved in the case, the decision appears to be in line with Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU from the Supreme Court’s last term.

However the kicker of the story is this paragraph, which offers an incomplete, if not outright false, description of Supreme Court jurisprudence: More »

Under the Branzburg case, reporters must reveal their sources if (1) they have knowledge of a specific violation of the law, (2) the information they have is crucial to the disposition of the case, and (3) prosecutors wouldn’t be able to get the information from anywhere else. More »

“…the movie industry has plans to relax controls over how films are copied to DVDs.” Every time there is an advancement in technology, some shakeout must occur during which the market leaders figure out how to use it to their advantage. The movie makers may finally be figuring it out. More »

This is a little old, but it’s a great discussion of fair use and copyright. This picture was at the heart of the lawsuit.

Does a church have a First Amedment right to tell women they can’t teach men in Bible class? The same right it has to tell men they can’t teach women in Bible class. I womder about the mayor’s sounding off about the religious practice of a fellow council member. More »

A great story about forum-shopping in England. I’ve got to do more research in this area. More »

This story should define what the author means by (actual) malice. More »

I’ve been in Germany for the week, where free speech mainly involves criticizing the United States, which is a safe move there. Here’s a whole bunch of Comm Law stories that have just piled up this week: More »

I’m in England, Wales, Germany and many points among them, So I’m not working to blog daily, but these two stories screamed out to be linked to: More »

I want to encourage friends and relations to browse the Flying Pi Ranch blog in the next month or so, where we’ll be keeping folks updated about our stay in England and Germany. I’ll continue to blog here regarding communication law topics. More »