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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Law
The First Amendment In The Second Gilded Age, Jack M. Balkin
The First Amendment In The Second Gilded Age, Jack M. Balkin
Buffalo Law Review
How do we pay for the digital public sphere? In the Second Gilded Age, the answer is primarily through digital surveillance and through finding ever new ways to make money out of personal data. Digital capitalism in the Second Gilded Age features an implicit bargain: a seemingly unlimited freedom to speak in exchange for the right to surveil and manipulate end users.To protect freedom of speech in the Second Gilded Age we must distinguish the values of free speech from the judicially created doctrines of the First Amendment. That is because the practical freedom to speak online depends on a …
The Law Of Advertising Outrage, Mark Bartholomew
The Law Of Advertising Outrage, Mark Bartholomew
Journal Articles
This article examines the stimulation of audience outrage, both as a marketing strategy and as a subject of legal regulation. A brief history of advertising in the United States reveals repeated yet relatively infrequent attempts to attract consumer attention through overt transgressions of social norms relating to sex, violence, race, and religion. Natural concerns over audience reaction limited use of this particular advertising tactic as businesses needed to be careful not to alienate prospective purchasers. But now companies can engage in “algorithmic outrage”—social media advertising meant to stimulate individual feelings of anger and upset—with less concern for a consumer backlash. …
When Privacy Almost Won: Time, Inc. V. Hill (1967), Samantha Barbas
When Privacy Almost Won: Time, Inc. V. Hill (1967), Samantha Barbas
Journal Articles
Drawing on previously unexplored and unpublished archival papers of Richard Nixon, the plaintiffs’ lawyer in the case, and the justices of the Warren Court, this article tells the story of the seminal First Amendment case Time, Inc. v. Hill (1967). In Hill, the Supreme Court for the first time addressed the conflict between the right to privacy and freedom of the press. The Court constitutionalized tort liability for invasion of privacy, acknowledging that it raised First Amendment issues and must be governed by constitutional standards. Hill substantially diminished privacy rights; today it is difficult if not impossible to recover against …
Intellectual Property’S Lessons For Information Privacy, Mark Bartholomew
Intellectual Property’S Lessons For Information Privacy, Mark Bartholomew
Journal Articles
There is an inherent tension between an individual’s desire to safeguard her personal information and the expressive rights of businesses seeking to communicate that information to others. This tension has multiplied as consumers generate and businesses collect more and more personal data online, forcing efforts to strike an appropriate balance between privacy and commercial speech. No consensus on this balance has been reached. Some privacy scholars bemoan what they see as a slanted playing field in favor of those wishing to profit from the private details of other people’s lives. Others contend that the right in free expression must always …
Striking A Balance Between Privacy And Online Commerce, Mark Bartholomew
Striking A Balance Between Privacy And Online Commerce, Mark Bartholomew
Journal Articles
It is becoming commonplace to note that privacy and online commerce are on a collision course. Corporate entities archive and monetize more and more personal information. Citizens increasingly resent the intrusive nature of such data collection and use. Just noticing this conflict, however, tells us little. In "Informing and Reforming the Marketplace of Ideas: The Public-Private Model for Data Production and the First Amendment" Professor Shubha Ghosh not only notes the tension between the costs and benefits of data commercialization, but suggests three normative perspectives for balancing privacy and commercial speech. This is valuable because without a rich theoretical framework …
An Intersystemic View Of Intellectual Property And Free Speech, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian
An Intersystemic View Of Intellectual Property And Free Speech, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian
Journal Articles
Intellectual property regimes operate in the shadow of the First Amendment. By deeming a particular activity as infringing, the law of copyright, trademark, and the right of publicity all limit communication. As a result, judges and lawmakers must delicately balance intellectual property rights with expressive freedoms. Interestingly, each intellectual property regime strikes the balance between ownership rights and free speech in a dramatically different way. Despite a large volume of scholarship on intellectual property rights and free speech considerations, this Article represents the first systematic effort to detail, analyze, and explain the divergent evolution of expression-based defenses in copyright, trademark, …
How The Movies Became Speech, Samantha Barbas
How The Movies Became Speech, Samantha Barbas
Journal Articles
In its 1915 decision in Mutual Film v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, the Supreme Court held that motion pictures were, as a medium, unprotected by freedom of speech and press because they were mere “entertainment” and “spectacles” with a “capacity for evil.” Mutual legitimated an extensive regime of film censorship that existed until the 1950s. It was not until 1952, in Burstyn v. Wilson, that the Court declared motion pictures to be, like the traditional press, an important medium for the communication of ideas protected by the First Amendment. By the middle of the next decade, film censorship in the …
Reason, The Common Law, And The Living Constitution (Review Of The Living Constitution By David Strauss), Matthew J. Steilen
Reason, The Common Law, And The Living Constitution (Review Of The Living Constitution By David Strauss), Matthew J. Steilen
Book Reviews
This article reviews David Strauss’s recent book, The Living Constitution. The thesis of Strauss’s book is that constitutional law is a kind of common law, based largely on judicial precedent and common-sense judgments about what works and what is fair. Strauss argues constitutional doctrines prohibiting discrimination and protecting free speech have a common law basis, and that the originalist would have to reject them. However, it is unclear that the common law can justify these rights. This review examines Strauss’s account of the common law and shows why it cannot justify our First Amendment protections of subversive advocacy, as Strauss …
Creating The Public Forum, Samantha Barbas
Creating The Public Forum, Samantha Barbas
Journal Articles
The public forum doctrine protects a right of access - “First Amendment easements” - to streets and parks and other traditional places for public expression. It is well known that the doctrine was articulated by the Supreme Court in a series of cases in the 1930s and 1940s. Lesser known are the historical circumstances that surrounded its creation. Critics believed that in a modern world where the mass media dominated public discourse - where the soap box orator and pamphleteer had been replaced by the radio and mass circulation newspaper - mass communications had undermined the possibility of widespread participation …
Minimalism And Deliberative Democracy: A Closer Look At The Virtues Of "Shallowness", Matthew J. Steilen
Minimalism And Deliberative Democracy: A Closer Look At The Virtues Of "Shallowness", Matthew J. Steilen
Journal Articles
Cass Sunstein has long argued that judicial minimalism promotes democracy. According to Sunstein’s view, a court can encourage the political branches of government to address an issue by using doctrines such as vagueness, nondelegation, and desuetude. Although much has been written about minimalism, very little has been said about the democracy-promotion thesis in particular. Yet it is one of the central claims of contemporary minimalism. This article attempts to remedy the deficiency. It argues that minimalism does not promote democracy because minimalist decisions lack the depth necessary to trigger democratic deliberation. The argument occurs in three steps. First, the article …
Parental Rights And The State Regulation Of Religious Schools, Matthew J. Steilen
Parental Rights And The State Regulation Of Religious Schools, Matthew J. Steilen
Journal Articles
In Wisconsin v. Yoder, the United States Supreme Court invalidated convictions of several Amish parents for removing their children from school in violation of state mandatory attendance laws. In reaching its decision, the Court argued that protecting the Amish parents’ decisions fit into a longstanding American tradition of giving parents control over the upbringing of their children. Yet the Supreme Court mischaracterized the history of parental rights and state interests in education. Contemporary historical research shows that parents have long ceded a large measure of control to the state in the education of their children. Still, very little has been …