Nota Bene

The Las Vegas Sun reports:

Without comment, the justices declined to hear the case involving a segment of the $1.5 billion fantasy sports industry in the United States, in which participants manage imaginary teams based on the real-life performances of professional players.The lawsuit involves C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing Inc., a Missouri company unable to obtain a license from a subsidiary of Major League Baseball to use players’ names in C.B.C.’s fantasy baseball games.

The Missouri company sued, saying it did not need a license to continue to sell its fantasy baseball games on its Web site.

The baseball players’ union jumped into the case on the league’s side, alleging a state law violation of the players’ publicity rights _ the ability to profit from the commercial use of a person’s name.

A federal court and the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled in favor of the fantasy baseball business, saying that enforcing state law rights would violate C.B.C.’s right of free speech protected by the First Amendment.

This Week in Law is one of the more useful podcasts floating around the internet. April’s edition covers the liability and insurance issues that arise from blogging and podcasting. Suppose you are a lawyer and are sued for a blog post or podcast. Will that lawsuit be covered by insurance? What are the employer-employee ramifications for blogging? Do any insurers sell policies that cover blogging?  What do they cost?  This Week in Law’s expert panel discusses these issues and suggests some best practices for minimizing risk while blogging and podcasting. Any attorney who blogs or who advises companies that allow blogging should listen to this excellent podcast.

The Associated Press reports:

A former USA Today reporter facing fines for failing to reveal her sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks said Saturday that news organizations need to go on the offensive in the fight to protect the First Amendment.

“As we all know, the news business is on a collective nervous breakdown,” Toni Locy told a coalition of open-government and press groups. “It’s time to stop running. It’s time to turn and fight. If we don’t fight for the First Amendment, who will?”

Locy, who now teaches journalism at West Virginia University, spoke at the annual convention of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.

She said the country needs a shield law that would protect reporters from having to reveal their sources.

“The First Amendment needs some help,” she said. “In this environment that we’re in now, it needs some help.”

Locy is appealing an order from U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton that requires her to pay as much as $5,000 a day until she gives up her sources for stories about the government’s investigation of the anthrax attacks.

MarketWatch.com reports:

Cisco Systems Inc. and one of its employees are being sued by Texas attorneys claiming the employee anonymously defamed them on a Web site critical of so-called “patent trolls” that sue technology companies over intellectual property rights.

The Cisco employee, attorney Richard Frenkel, had been writing anonymously on the “Patent Troll Tracker” Web site. According to court documents, in October, Frenkel wrote that Texas attorney Eric Albritton “conspired” with the clerk of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to alter official documents in a proceeding involving Cisco.

In a civil suit filed in a Texas court Friday, Albritton claims that by doing so, Frenkel “acted with specific intent to injure” Albritton’s reputation and professional standing. Albritton is seeking unspecified damages.

The North County Times reports:

Saying that comments posted on a local blog have defamed him, a Murrieta man filed a civil lawsuit Thursday in what his attorney calls “a novel legal issue.”

Roy Holmgren claims in his lawsuit that statements made about him on murrietaopinion.blogspot.com have exposed him to “hatred, ridicule, contempt and disgrace.”

Holmgren is suing the operator of the blog as well as those who have posted the comments about him.

But, so far, neither he nor his attorney, Richard Ackerman, know who specifically they are suing.

“… the defendants hide behind the veil of the Internet to cover up their nefarious and tortious activities,” the lawsuit states.

Ackerman said Thursday that he has tried to find out who runs the blog from the host of the site, blogspot.com, but they have yet to cooperate.

“Whoever they are, they don’t have the right to publish defamatory material,” Ackerman said.

The lawsuit lists what it calls “false statements or general assertions” about Holmgren made on the blog.

According to the suit, bloggers said he was a stalker, that he is married to an illegal alien, that he has committed crimes that destroyed property, illegally gained credit report information, vandalized a blogger’s sport utility vehicle, and that he begs for money on the side of the road.

One blogger called Holmgren “a danger to this community” and wrote that he has mental and emotional problems he can’t control, according to the lawsuit.

Yahoo! News reports:

A federal judge who shuttered the renegade Web site Wikileaks.org reversed the decision Friday and allowed the site to re-open in the United States.

In mid-February, U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White issued an injunction against Wikileaks after the Zurich-based Bank Julius Baer accused the site of posting sensitive account information stolen by a disgruntled former employee.

I guess someone showed Judge White a copy of the First Amendment.

The NY Times reports:

The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of a trove of documents that revealed how Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick of Detroit and city lawyers tried to cover up Mr. Kilpatrick’s extramarital affair with his chief of staff, as well as text messages that could expose the mayor to perjury charges.

The seven justices voted unanimously to reject the city’s appeal to keep the documents secret, ending a two-month battle between Mr. Kilpatrick’s staff and Michigan’s two largest newspapers, The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, in which the City Council had condemned the mayor’s secrecy. (more…)

The ACLU has issued this press release:

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last night filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit that led a federal district judge to order the domain name Wikileaks.org shut down. The motion is on behalf of organizations and individuals that have accessed and used documents on the Wikileaks.org website in their work and want to continue to be able to do so.

“The court’s order shuts down and locks up the domain name Wikileaks.org permanently, effectively interfering with the public’s ability to access the materials on the website as easily as possible,” said Aden Fine, senior staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group. “The public has a right to receive information and ideas, especially ones concerning the public interest. This injunction ignores that vital First Amendment principle.”

The OC Register reports:

A judge Monday allowed a lawsuit to proceed against a California Highway Patrol dispatcher in a high-profile case about graphic accident photos leaked onto the Internet.

A second dispatcher, however, was removed as a defendant in the complaint.

In separate rulings that keep alive the possibility of a jury trial against the CHP, Judge Steven L. Perk ruled that the alleged conduct of dispatch supervisor Thomas ODonnell was not protected by his constitutional right of free speech – as his attorneys argued.

Relatives of Nicole “Nikki” Catsouras sued the CHP, ODonnell and another dispatcher, Aaron Reich, after the agency took responsibility for improperly releasing the grisly images to the public. Accident-scene photos are supposed to be used only for investigative purposes.

The First Amendment Center reports:

A federal judge in Missouri has rejected the First Amendment claims of a man removed from Kirkwood City Council meetings for “repetitive, personal, virulent attacks” against council members.

Charles Lee Thornton had sued the city of Kirkwood after he was arrested twice and later convicted for disorderly conduct at two council meetings in 2006.

In May 2006, Thornton had the opportunity to speak during the public-comment portion of a council meeting that addressed the expansion of two businesses — a funeral home and a senior living facility. During the time reserved to discuss the funeral home, Thornton rose to speak about what he alleged was personal harassment of him by city officials, not the expansion of the business. He displayed a large poster with a picture of a donkey and made intemperate remarks about the mayor. Thornton then warned the funeral home owner that the city had a “plantation-mentality” and “jackass-like qualities.”