The Australian Research Council has recently completed its consultation process to develop ranking tables for journals. Controversy led to the Humanities and Creative Arts list being unavailable for a time after publication, but it seems to be available now. The ranking is in four divisions: A*, A, B and C (and there is a nice explanation here). However unfortunate such a development may be, given the way in which university life is developing internationally, it is inevitable that such tables will be developed and will have an impact.

The law journals have been extracted from the humanities list by the ever-industrious Simon Fodden on Slaw. Read the rest of this entry »

With all the coverage of Government ins and outs at Minister of State level, it was easy to miss yesterday’s announcement by Government Chief Whip Pat Carey of the Legislative Programme for the coming parliamentary session (Irish Times report | Government press release). According to the Dáil Éireann Order Paper for 22 April 2009 (pdf), this continues to include the long-delayed Defamation Bill, 2006. The Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, has recently stated his hope that the Bill would become law by the Summer, so its continuing inclusion on the Order Paper is to be welcomed. It is currently becalmed in the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women’s Rights. That committee completed its work on the Tribunals of Inquiry Bill, 2005 at its last sitting earlier this month, and is scheduled (pdf; see also here) to take up the Arbitration Bill, 2008 today. To stand any chance of enactment either side of the Summer, the Defamation Bill will have to be taken next. As to that, we shall have to wait and see.

This one, from Contracts Prof Blog, speaks for itself:

Relive your 1L Contracts class at home! With better looking people!

After what has seemed to most Contracts professors an unconscionably long time, the TV series The Paper Chase has finally come out on video.  Technically, it's called "season one" although there was only one season on the original CBS program in 1978-79.  Three additional seasons were run on Showtime starting in 1983, which allowed the protagonist, "Mr. Hart," to graduate Harvard in only four years.

On the Amazon web site (linked above) you can see a riveting clip dealing with (among other things) whether one who performs the service requested by a reward offer can recover if he was unaware of the reward.  The growing tension among the students who offer different answers is . . . palpable. 

It doesn't get any better than this.

[Frank Snyder; h/t Scott Burnham]

My previously declared interest is here.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; …”. Does that and similar declarations of press freedom extend to the blogosphere? The question is made more difficult in the context of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is a general protection of freedom of expression which contains no direct reference to the media at all, though the European Court of Human Rights has long extolled the “watchdog” role of the press as of especial value in Article 10 jurisprudence. The question is made more difficult still in the context of the Treaties establishing the European Union, where speech issues arise not as elements of a straightforward freedom of expression guarantee but in the context of the fundamental economic rights upon which the EU is founded, but even there the European Court of Justice has long acknowledged the importance of freedom of expression especially as regards the media. Over on contentandcarrier, Hans Peter Lehofer has spotted some interesting asides in recent judgments of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, signalling how those courts may be about to build on these developments and expand press freedom to non-traditional media, such as the blogosphere.

First in time is the ECJ decision in Case C-73/07 Tietosuojavaltuutettu v Satakunnan Markkinapörssi Oy and Satamedia Oy (noted here by Daithí), which concerned the distribution of information by subscription to a text messaging service. The ECJ commented that the medium which is used to transmit data, whether it be paper or radio or the internet, is not determinative as to whether an activity is undertaken ‘solely for journalistic purposes’, so that publications may be classified as ‘journalistic activities’

if their object is the disclosure to the public of information, opinions or ideas, irrespective of the medium which is used to transmit them. They are not limited to media undertakings and may be undertaken for profit-making purposes.

Then there is the more recent ECHR decision of Application no. 37374/05 Társaság a Szabadságjogokért v Hungary (noted here on the ECHR blog), in which the applicant – TASZ – was the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union. The ECHR commented that although the function of the press includes the creation of forums for public debate, the realisation of this function is not limited to the media. Indeed, the Court has repeatedly recognised civil society’s important contribution to the discussion of public affairs. Hence, since TASZ was an association involved in human rights litigation, it could

therefore be characterised, like the press, as a social “watchdog” … In these circumstances, the Court is satisfied that its activities warrant similar Convention protection to that afforded to the press.

On the basis of these quotes, he concludes:

Summing it up: ECJ and ECHR have clearly moved to grant traditional press freedoms not only to traditional media, but also to SMS-information services (and, if implicitly, bloggers!) and NGOs engaged in “the creation of forums for public debate”.

I like that parenthesis, and I think he is quite right (in the ECJ context, Daithí had already made the connection). The question of the extent to which bloggers are journalists and are entitled to extended legal protections analogous to any which the mainstream media may enjoy is a very important one. To take one example. In the very near future, I’m going to return to the question of journalists’ source privilege. Where it exits, should bloggers also have the benefit of it? Hans Peter Lehofer’s analysis suggests that, at least so far as the ECHR and the ECJ are concerned, the answer that is beginning to emerge in principle is: yes.

Silvio Berlusconi and Mara Carfagna, though not by Filippo Panseca

Yesterday’s Times Online has a short piece which begins [with added links]

A scarf is the only thing protecting the modesty of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, in a painting of him and his Minister for Equal Opportunities, Mara Carfagna, 32, a former topless model, as angels. The work by Filippo Panseca is in a show at Savona on the Italian Riviera. Mr Panseca, 69, said that he wanted to pay tribute to the Prime Minister, 72, in the exhibition, which also includes a painting in similar style of Mr Berlusconi’s wife Veronica Lario.

The same story is also covered in The Independent, The Telegraph, and The Daily Mail. The inevitable comparisons with Cowengate were drawn by the Evening Herald, which adds that Panseca said that if

Berlusconi bought the paintings he would donate the money to the earthquake victims of Abruzzo. Mr Berlusconi has yet to comment. But he seems unlikely to buy the pictures: last year, he censored a bare nipple in a copy of a renaissance painting hung in the government press room.

More seriously, though, it seems that 144 people complained to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission about RTÉ’s coverage, 9 about the original report, and 135 about the apology; and Suzy has posted a copy of RTÉs response to the BCC regarding those complaints. In essence, RTÉ’s position is that the original story was not a breach of taste and decency; whilst the apology was not a breach of objectivity. But this is inconsistent. As Clockwork Chartophylax points out

Either the original report was offensive and required an apology, or it was inoffensive and the apology was unnecessary and only made to avoid angering the Taoiseach, which is a clear failure of objectivity and impartiality. RTE management can’t have it both ways.

While we await the BCC’s reply, perhaps Messrs Cowen and Berlusconi might have friends visiting Iowa in the near future? If they do, they might receive an interesting present: a copy of Bill that seeks to prohibit political cartoons (at least in some election contexts) (see Volokh here and here, and Rick Hasen; hat tip: Media Law Prof Blog). Meanwhile, in an echo of my speculation about whether the caricatures constitute seditious libel, a Thai blogger has been sentenced to ten years imprisonment after pleading guilty under Thailand’s ugly lèse-majesté laws – his crime was to have posted anti-monarchy pictures and comments on his blog, and two journalists in the Ivory Coast have been convicted of “offending the head of state” and fined 20 million CFA francs (US$40,500 dollars) each.

In my first post on this issue, I argued that that the caricatures were protected political speech within the remit of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Since then, TJ has pointed out to me (off blog) that there is a decision of the European Court of Human Rights directly on point. Read the rest of this entry »

If you liked my posts about the gatekeeper responsibilities of search engines, then you’ll have loved last week’s furore over Amazon’s decision to disable search and sales ranking for “adult” material. I followed the controversy via John Naughton’s Memex 1.1 blog, here, here and here (pointing to his column in last weekend’s Observer). It has long been a source of worry that private actors such as Google and Amazon should retain so much personal data as to raise significant privacy concerns. More recently, the range of worry has broadened, with the realisation that such companies can not only manipulate their databases to target advertising at their users, but they can also manipulate them to prevent the users having access to data. Lawyers notoriously understand very little about internet reserach, and so have great difficulty in addressing the kinds of legal and regulatory issues that such manipulation reveal. I have recently blogged about articles by Oren Bracha and Frank Pasquale and by Emily B Laidlaw, arguing that actors such as Amazon and Google should come under common law duties analagous to those that govern public utilities.

More generally, over on Concurring Opinions, a rolling symposium, starting here, is considering Danielle Citron’s seminal article “Cyber Civil Rights” 89 Boston University Law Review 61 (2009). In its details, it’s a million miles from Bracha, Pasquale, and Laidlaw; but in its strategy, it reinforces their way forward. Read the rest of this entry »

Via the great John Naughton, the ultimate tweet about twitter:

Via 9th Level Ireland, I am alerted to the following story [with added links]:

Euthanasia lecture cancelled

A controversial public lecture on euthanasia has been cancelled minutes after it began when a group of over 20 protestors disrupted it. The guest speaker Prof Len Doyal, an open proponent of both voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia, had to be escorted from the lecture theatre at Cork University Hospital by security staff. The lecture entitled ‘Why Euthanasia should be legalised‘, formed part of the annual spring series organized by CUH’s Ethics Forum and started at 5pm. As the 350 attendees were being welcomed, a group of over 20 people stood up and began shouting. Witnesses say some began saying the rosary and one man accused Prof Doyal of being a murderer. A decision was taken soon afterwards to cancel the lecture on public safety grounds but it took some time to get the message through to the audience because of the continuing strong vocal opposition by protestors. …

This is terrible news. As I have argued here before, to ensure that hecklers do not have a veto, those who organise such controversial events must ensure that the controversial speakers actually have the opportunity to speak. Unsurprisingly, the lecture has been a source of controversy for quite some time, so the organisers’ failure to make appropriate arrangements is almost as culpable as the hecklers’ veto. Cary Nelson, President of the American Association of University Professors, explains why controversial speakers, even monsters, should be able to speak on campus. Read the rest of this entry »