Seminar Overview

For 25 years, the Media and the Law Seminar has highlighted important First Amendment issues. In the late 1980's, there was significant concern among media advocates that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Milkovich v. Lorain Journal would erode protected opinion under the First Amendment. In the next decade, newsgathering techniques took center stage in high stakes privacy suits, such as in Food Lion v. ABC, as juries punished intrusive media defendants, and the public developed its first taste for "reality" programming. Libel damages, which had been increasing, peaked with a $222 million jury verdict (which was never collected) in MMAR Group Inc. v. Dow Jones & Company. As the new millennium dawned, courts struggled to apply First Amendment principles to Internet communications and to interpret new federal laws, such as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In 2008, we witnessed the rapid decline of news media companies as subscribers—and advertisers—left in droves for online sources of news and information. Today, social media has become the platform of choice for many, allowing them to influence and challenge corporations, government and politics by speaking with a unified voice in tweets, texts and posts. Through it all, the First Amendment continues to endure and expand, even protecting speech and conduct most consider to be repugnant, such as that directed toward fallen U.S. soldiers by the Westboro Baptist Church.

With a nod to its past and a look toward the future, this year's seminar will discuss how new media challenges our notion of privacy and free speech. Google plans to wire Kansas City, Kansas, as its first city of the future. Our panel will analyze whether the benefits of immediate public access trump concerns over Google's access to the online actions of so many. In another panel, authors seeking to protect their copyright interests will square off against book publishers seeking to digitize "orphaned" literary works. We will explore how dancing flash-mobs have morphed into sinister "smash and grabs" and how city officials struggle to balance the protection of citizens against the right of others to be heard. Film clips will spotlight a dispute over whether zealous plaintiffs’ attorneys improperly use documentaries to the detriment of corporate defendants in civil litigation. Finally, we'll discuss how anti-SLAPP statutes are being adopted by more states and weakening the threat of libel litigation.

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