Law Commons^™

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Id Software Llc In Support Of Respondents, Paul E. Salamanca, James T. Drakeley, D. Wade Cloud Jr., Kevin J. Keith, J. Griffin Lesher, Amy Yeung

Law Faculty Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Free Speech And The Myth Of The Internet As An Unintermediated Experience, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, a growing number of commentators have raised concerns that the decisions made by Internet intermediaries — including last-mile network providers, search engines, social networking sites, and smartphones — are inhibiting free speech and have called for restrictions on their ability to prioritize or exclude content. Such calls ignore the fact that when mass communications are involved, intermediation helps end users to protect themselves from unwanted content and allows them to sift through the avalanche of desired content that grows ever larger every day. Intermediation also helps solve a number of classic economic problems associated with the Internet. …

Citizens United And The Threat To The Regulatory State, Tamara R. Piety

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Although Citizens United has been roundly criticized for its potential effect on elections and its display of judicial immodesty (or "activism"), the effect of the case which may be both most profound and perhaps most pernicious is its effect on the commercial speech doctrine. This is an aspect of the case which has been largely overlooked. Most people seem to be unaware of any connection between election law and the commercial speech doctrine-except, that is, those who have been working long and hard to accomplish the change it foreshadows. They are keenly aware of its implications.

First Amendment Martyr, First Amendment Opportunist: Commentary On Larry Flynt's Role In The Free Speech Debate, Rodney A. Smolla

First Amendment Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contents, First Amendment Law Review

First Amendment Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Falwell To Obama And Everyone (And Everything) In Between: Larry Flynt Unfiltered In Chapel Hill, Clay Calvert, Robert D. Richards

First Amendment Law Review

No abstract provided.

Prosecuting Obscenity Cases: An Interview With Mary Beth Buchanan, Robert D. Richards, Clay Calvert

First Amendment Law Review

No abstract provided.

How To Fix The Sexting Problem: An Analysis Of The Legal And Policy Considerations For Sexting Legislation, Lawrence G. Walters

First Amendment Law Review

No abstract provided.

Snyder V. Phelps, Private Persons And Intentional Infliction Of Emotional Distress: A Chance For The Supreme Court To Set Things Right, W. Wat Hopkins

First Amendment Law Review

No abstract provided.

Staying Neutral: How Washington State Courts Should Approach Negligent Supervision Claims Against Religious Organizations, Kelly H. Sheridan

Washington Law Review

The torts of negligent hiring, supervision, and retention place a duty on employers to prevent their employees from using the places, things, or tasks entrusted to them to harm foreseeable victims. The negligent employment torts create an independent duty under which plaintiffs may pursue an action when suits brought under a vicarious liability or breach of fiduciary duty theory would fail. For victims of sexual misconduct by religious leaders, negligent supervision claims against religious organizations are a crucial means of remedying serious and lasting injuries. Washington state law recognizes negligent supervision, and Washington courts have applied it to religious organizations, …

Staying Neutral: How Washington State Courts Should Approach Negligent Supervision Claims Against Religious Organizations, Kelly H. Sheridan

Washington Law Review

The torts of negligent hiring, supervision, and retention place a duty on employers to prevent their employees from using the places, things, or tasks entrusted to them to harm foreseeable victims. The negligent employment torts create an independent duty under which plaintiffs may pursue an action when suits brought under a vicarious liability or breach of fiduciary duty theory would fail. For victims of sexual misconduct by religious leaders, negligent supervision claims against religious organizations are a crucial means of remedying serious and lasting injuries. Washington state law recognizes negligent supervision, and Washington courts have applied it to religious organizations, …

Staying Neutral: How Washington State Courts Should Approach Negligent Supervision Claims Against Religious Organizations, Kelly H. Sheridan

Washington Law Review

The torts of negligent hiring, supervision, and retention place a duty on employers to prevent their employees from using the places, things, or tasks entrusted to them to harm foreseeable victims. The negligent employment torts create an independent duty under which plaintiffs may pursue an action when suits brought under a vicarious liability or breach of fiduciary duty theory would fail. For victims of sexual misconduct by religious leaders, negligent supervision claims against religious organizations are a crucial means of remedying serious and lasting injuries. Washington state law recognizes negligent supervision, and Washington courts have applied it to religious organizations, …

The First Amendment Protects Military Funeral Protests, Timothy Zick

Popular Media

Military funeral protests are offensive, but protected free speech.

The First Amendment’S Religion Clauses: The Calvinist Document That Interprets Them Both, Leah Farish Esq.

College of Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

This paper suggests that the Westminster Confession of Faith's provisions about church and state, revised in Philadelphia at the start of the Constitution's ratifying convention, furnished much of the syntax and vocabulary for the First Amendment's religion clauses. Recognizing the cultural links between the new American government and the Presbyterian Church, the author argues that it was natural for the founders to look to how the new Westminster Confession situated church and state. The author argues that Fisher Ames's proposed wording for the First Amendment won immediate adoption because it resonated with the Confession, standing as it did in that …

Foreword: Advertising And The Law, Mark Bartholomew

Buffalo Law Review

This foreword to a special issue of the Buffalo Law Review provides an overview of seven articles addressing the intersection of advertising and law. The special issue stems from a November 2009 conference held at the University at Buffalo Law School. The foreword examines the particular difficulties in characterizing the relationship between advertisers, consumers, and the law. Advertisers promulgate certain symbolic meanings designed to induce consumption. Sometimes these meanings are contested through legal means yet consumers can only participate in advertising's regulatory apparatus indirectly. This results in a dynamic between advertiser and consumer that is difficult to define yet ubiquitous …

The Story Of Us: Resolving The Face-Off Between Autobiographical Speech And Information Privacy, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

Increasingly more “ordinary” Americans are choosing to share their life experiences with a public audience. In doing so, however, they are revealing more than their own personal stories, they are exposing private information about others as well. The face-off between autobiographical speech and information privacy is coming to a head, and our legal system is not prepared to handle it.

In a prior article, I established that autobiographical speech is a unique and important category of speech that is at risk of being undervalued under current law. This article builds on my earlier work by addressing the emerging conflict between …

Stealth Marketing And Antibranding: The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, Sonia K. Katyal

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brandjacking On Social Networks: Trademark Infringement By Impersonation Of Markholders, Lisa P. Ramsey

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Advertising And Social Identity, Mark Bartholomew

Buffalo Law Review

This essay takes a stand in the brewing legal academic debate over the consequences of advertising. On one side are the semiotic democratists, scholars who bemoan the ability of advertisers to take control of the meanings that they create through trademark law and other pro-business legal rules. On the other side are those who are more sanguine about the ability of consumers to rework advertising messages and point to several safety valves for free expression existing in the current advertising regulation regime. My take on this debate is that the participants have failed to address the impact of advertising on …

Consumer Counter-Advertising Law And Corporate Social Responsibility, Alberto R. Salazar V.

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Attention Must Be Paid: Commercial Speech, User-Generated Ads, And The Challenge Of Regulation, Rebecca Tushnet

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Humanitarian Law Project -- The Dissent, Stephen Ellmann

Other Publications

This post originally appeared on http://nowwithouthesitation.blogspot.com/2010/07/humanitarian-law-project-dissent.html

Fcc V. Fox Television Stations And The Fcc's New Fleeting Expletive Policy, Jerome A. Barron

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Article focuses on the Supreme Court's decision in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 129 S. Ct. 1800 (2009). In that case, the Supreme Court upheld an important change in the FCC indecency regulation. In the past, the FCC's policy had been that the broadcast of a single expletive did not violate FCC indecency policy. In order for such fleeting expletives to be actionable, the FCC required that they had to be repetitive and gratuitous. But in 2004, in response to the use of some expletives by entertainers during the Golden Globe Awards, the FCC changed its policy and …

Music As Speech: A First Amendment Category Unto Itself, David Munkittrick

Federal Communications Law Journal

Perhaps the most ubiquitous of art forms, music accompanies daily activities from shopping to jogging. Music permeates modem society, and there is little question it constitutes an integral mode of expression. Despite recognition of music's worth, however, there is little explanation of music in First Amendment jurisprudence. A rationale for First Amendment protection begins with analysis of the particular medium of speech. Through a foray in musical aesthetics and the history of musical censorship, this Note discusses the role of music in political, societal, and individual experience. Music has had an important role in political events, from the fall of …

Concurring In Part & Concurring In The Confusion, Sonja West

Sonja R. West

When a federal appellate court decided last year that two reporters must either reveal their confidential sources to a grand jury or face jail time, the court did not hesitate in relying on the majority opinion in the Supreme Court's sole comment on the reporter's privilege--Branzburg v. Hayes. "The Highest Court has spoken and never revisited the question. Without doubt, that is the end of the matter," Judge Sentelle wrote for the three-judge panel on the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. By this declaration, the court dismissed with a wave of its judicial hand the arguments …

The Story Of Me: The Underprotection Of Autobiographical Speech, Sonja R. West

Sonja R. West

This Article begins the debate over the constitutional underprotection of autobiographical speech. While receiving significant historical, scientific, religious, and philosophical respect for centuries, the timehonored practice of talking about yourself has been ignored by legal scholars. A consequence of this oversight is that current free speech principles protect the autobiographies of the powerful but leave the stories of “ordinary” people vulnerable to challenge. Shifting attitudes about privacy combined with advanced technologies, meanwhile, have led to more people than ever before having both the desire and the means to tell their stories to a widespread audience. This Article argues that truthful …

Blowing Its Cover: How The Intelligence Identities Protection Act Has Masqueraded As An Effective Law And Why It Must Be Amended, Andrew M. Szilagyi

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Street Shootings: Covert Photography And Public Privacy, Nancy D. Zeronda

Vanderbilt Law Review

Street photographers, like snipers, pride themselves on stealth.' Camouflaged in nondescript clothing, they wander the streets undetectable, armed, and on the hunt. When they find their mark, they act quickly. As the famous twentieth-century street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson described: "The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box." While methods of "trapping prey" vary from shooter to shooter, the mission remains the same-staying as covert as possible and catching an unknowing subject in a candid pose. In …

God Of Our Fathers, Gods For Ourselves: Fundamentalism And Postmodern Belief, Frederick Mark Gedicks

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Nonproblem Of Fundamentalism, Andrew Koppelman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.