Entries from January 2010
An assistant coach’s online insults aimed at fellow coaches have lead to a $200,000 libel lawsuit.
The showdown is at Sacred Heart-Griffin High School in Illinois, where a football coach and his assistant claim the former defensive coordinator 
has libeled them with labels like “pedophile” and “thief” on Facebook, according to the State-Journal Register.
The coaches say they have been dealing with three years of online insults.
Long live online media, because the newspaper has attached a downloadable PDF of the court document for your perusal should you choose.
Let’s just hope that the only lesson students learn from this case is a positive one.
Categories: front page
I love it when truth is stranger than fiction.
This little gem of a case comes out of the Sunshine State.
Self-proclaimed porn star Justin Krueger’s photos have shown up on a male escort site called men4rentnow.com, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
But the angry party in the lawsuit is not Krueger. It’s Liberty Media, which says it owns the copyright to the photos and the trademark to a name in the photos. Liberty filed suit in federal court in Orlando.
For more on the case, see the story.
Categories: Media Law Case of the Week
Tagged: copyright, trademark
If you are reading this blog, chances are you have heard of the Innocence Project, in which a group of Medill Journalism students at Northwestern University have freed 11 wrongly convicted men and women.
Today a Chicago-area prosecutor is trying to get access to students grades and class notes. Why, you might ask? You really need to listen to this NPR story.
In short, the prosecutor is arguing that these students may be being pressured by their professor to prove innocence, even if that means bribing sources to tell the “right” stories. Ridiculous.
Are we expected to believe this prosecution has nothing to do with the embarrassment these cases might cause to the legal system? Or that the prosecutor is not trying to intimidate these students — and future students — into silence?
The professor in question, journalist David Protess, says he won’t give up the records. Good for him.
Keep fighting the good fight, Professor. With people like you, the true spirit of journalism will survive.
Categories: front page
has libeled them with labels like “pedophile” and “thief” on Facebook, according to the State-Journal Register.