Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Wed, 13 Apr 2011 03:52:31 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110412/00223013859/is-it-first-amendment-violation-to-kick-student-out-nursing-school-blogging-about-patient.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110412/00223013859/is-it-first-amendment-violation-to-kick-student-out-nursing-school-blogging-about-patient.shtml Michael Scott points us to an interesting lawsuit, in which a student who was expelled from nursing school after blogging about patients, is fighting to say that the expulsion violated her First Amendment rights and her due process rights. Of course, the First Amendment doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want, but I believe the key issue here is that she was attending the University of Louisville -- which is a state school, so there is some aspect of government action here. On the due process side, she claims that she was never given a fair hearing and never told what specific rules she violated. The district court had ruled in her favor, ordering the university to reinstate her, but did so by effectively ignoring her specific charges, and claiming instead that the woman had not violated the university's honor code or confidentiality agreement, so it was a simple contract dispute where she had not violated the contract.

However, the university reasonably appealed, pointing out that the woman hadn't even argued that point, so it was wrong to decide the case on those grounds, and now an appeals court has agreed, sending the case back to the district court to consider the First Amendment issues. While I'm a big supporter of the First Amendment, I'm not sure I see how she has any significant claim here. The university did nothing to silence her speech, but merely said that if she wanted to say those things, she couldn't do it while a student in their school. The due process claim may have a bit more to it, in that the situation was handled poorly, and it appears the woman had no chance to defend herself or argue her side of the story. But, you would think that a university has the right to determine who to allow in and who to expel without it being a constitutional issue...

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]]> questions,-questions http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110412/00223013859 Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:21:51 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080814/0312181976.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080814/0312181976.shtml Larry Lessig points us to news of another good court decision, tossing out EMI's attempt to stop Ben Stein's movie Expelled from using John Lennon's song Imagine. If this sounds somewhat familiar, it's because Yoko Ono had filed a similar lawsuit -- which she lost. In both cases, the courts have recognized that Stein's use of the song is pretty clearly fair use. As the link above points out, this is important for a variety of reasons -- including a terrible ruling a few years back that said effectively that there was no fair use for music samples. It's good to see courts recognizing that fair use applies to music as well as other types of content.

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]]> good-decision http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080814/0312181976 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:41:56 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080812/0243101958.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080812/0243101958.shtml exactly the type of bill that's been introduced in the state, as it rushes into following others in trying to make it illegal to be a jerk online. Yes, cyberbullying is an issue for the targets of such bullying. But the answer is not to create laws that try to legislate manners, nor to suggest that it's okay to kick kids out of school for sending a bullying message. All that's going to do is have overly sensitive kids complaining any time anyone sends them a mean message.

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]]> seems-a-bit-extreme http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080812/0243101958 Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:38:34 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080424/192027941.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080424/192027941.shtml Yoko Ono is suing the makers of the anti-evolution documentary Expelled. The movie has received a ton of bad press, and there have been widespread dissections with the many problems in the movie which seems to have difficulty understanding what the scientific method is actually about. Apparently, in one part of the movie, the famous John Lennon song "Imagine" is used, and some of the people complaining about the movie got angry at Ono, thinking she had licensed the song to be in such a controversial movie. The clip was not licensed -- but the filmmakers claim that it's protected fair use, saying that they're using a short clip of the song for commentary purposes. I haven't seen the film, nor can I find that particular clip online, but, as awful as Expelled sounds, I have a hard time siding with Yoko Ono on this. Media companies have, for too long, been overly aggressive in claiming that any use of music in a movie must be licensed. That seems to go against the concept of fair use entirely, and it would be good to change that. I just wish it wasn't with a movie such as this one.

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