More Filings Raise Concerns About Hot News And The First Amendment

from the speech? dept

Thu, Jun 24th 2010 6:31am — Mike Masnick

We've already covered how Google and Twitter weighed in with concerns about the "hot news" doctrine. Then we covered how a bunch of big newspapers and newspaper groups begged the court not to take away "hot news." And, now, we get to the First Amendment arguments. We've been alerted to two more amici briefs, both of which ask the court to review "hot news" from a First Amendment perspective -- something that really hasn't happened before. The first is a very, very detailed brief from Citizen Media Law Project, the EFF and Public Citizen, which goes into great detail about why this is an important First Amendment issue:

That brief doesn't take a specific position on the case itself, but merely asks the court to consider the First Amendment, and to make sure that any ruling does not cut off First Amendment protections. In some ways, it's the opposite of the newspapers' brief, which also refused to take a specific position on the case, but wanted to make sure that a First Amendment claim did not kill off "hot news."

The second one may be even more interesting. It comes from AHN, better known as All Headline News, which very clearly says the court should overturn the lower court's ruling. AHN has some direct experience here, as the AP sued it over "hot news" not so long ago, though the two sides eventually settled. So it, perhaps more than anyone else, has direct experience with just how much a "hot news" lawsuit can chill speech:

The First Amendment arguments are the ones that resonate with me the most as well. Hopefully the court agrees.

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Filed Under: first amendment, hot news
Companies: all headline news, citizen media law project, eff, public citizen

13 Comments

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anonymoose coward, 24 Jun 2010 @ 7:05am

the first amendment is for hippies and welfare mothers, not productive members of society. once you get over that you will understand that the masnick just holds up the first amendment as a way to steal from the real producers.
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- Someantimalwareguy, 24 Jun 2010 @ 10:09am
  
  Re:
  That has to be one of the most ignorant diatribes I have seen in a long time. But you will be happy to know that I will continue fighting for your right to say it...
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  - Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2010 @ 12:00pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I think the other coward was merely taking the piss.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2010 @ 4:20pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      he was. he isn't even the real lowercase troll. he just built up an easily ignorable strawman argument about the first amendment and took in a few suckers for fun.
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- Nick, 24 Jun 2010 @ 11:40am
  
  Re:
  strong words from someone who apparently want's their views to be heard...
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Overcast (profile), 24 Jun 2010 @ 7:23am

the first amendment is for hippies and welfare mothers, not productive members of society. once you get over that you will understand that the masnick just holds up the first amendment as a way to steal from the real producers.

Perhaps in China, but it's the LAW in the U.S.

And steal what? News? Who owns that?

I guess in the 'corporate world' someone has to.. problem you might want to look at in the 'corporate world' too though - is who owns you?
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- Dark Helmet (profile), 24 Jun 2010 @ 7:34am
  
  Re:
  "who owns you?"
  
  The only correct answer to this question, regardless of who asks it, is "Dark Helmet".
  
  I own all of you. All your citzens are belong to me. And me wants a Mr. Coffee.
  
  ....Now!
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- Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2010 @ 7:44am
  
  Re:
  i thought we were all about standing up against unjust laws here. did things change?
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  - Berenerd (profile), 24 Jun 2010 @ 8:26am
    
    Re: Re:
    "i thought we were all about standing up against unjust laws here. did things change?"
    
    Certainly, tell me how this law is unjust to the common person walking along the street? telling me "it keeps companies making claims they own something they don't rich and happy" is not a satisfactory answer...
    
    ok.......GO!!!
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  - Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2010 @ 8:46am
    
    Re: Re:
    If the First Amendment were unjust, it wouldn't be the FIRST Amendment
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    - Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2010 @ 8:57am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      i was the FIRST poster. that means i must be correct. your logic is flawed.
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Bil Dodder, 24 Jun 2010 @ 9:36am

Newspapers and AP want Hot News to stifle competition
If freedom of speech and the first amendment were really important to the Associated Press they would not support Hot News.

The AP is trying to use Hot News to unlawfully stifle competition and defend a dead business model.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2010 @ 10:20am

How they will defend "hot news doctrine"?

There is no reasonable way I can see. It will be used as a hammer to block, blogs, and social networks(i.e. twitter, youtube, vimeo, facebook...).

Imagine people debating the oil spill on the coast, would BP not use the hot doctrine to curb everyone from talking about it? Would people talking about the deluges in China, U.S. and Brazil be forced to not do that so the news agency can be the only one discussing that?

I bogs my mind on what that means, people can be censored, opinions can be controlled, I don't see how that is good in any way to anybody but the supposedly source of the news that in many cases is not even the source is a "reporter", what will happen when people in China say they are all suffering from the rains, or the people on the gulf starts blogging about the oil blobs is that when people can start discussing? Because is people on the ground that are in the local region reporting those things do they get a million dollars to stay quite or do they get a C&D for reporting what they see so some company can report on that?
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