By Chris Cotter

Social media is the new black. As of September, Facebook boasted 88.3 million unique US users (a surprising 38% of whom are over 35). From February 2008 through February 2009, Twitter’s user base grew  a whopping 1382%. And if you’ve spent more than ten minutes on the web, you already know that there’s a blog for just about everything you can imagine. What’s funny is, we Americans would sooner give a kidney than our “sensitive” personal information. Yet, many of us freely post photos, videos and comments all over social media platforms, just as freely as we shake hands. Every day, millions of Americans delightedly navigate websites of great social and political import, blissfully unaware of the digital autobiography they are leaving behind. But while they may not be cognizant of the value of their interactions with the web, some very powerful people are, and as an attorney, you should be too.

DecisionQuest, Inc. provides a number of litigation support services to law firms, one of which is jury research. On November 17, one of DecisionQuest’s “social media experts,” Christine Martin came to speak at New York Law School about how social media research can help during the jury selection phase of litigation.

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By Trevor Timm

On September 18th three Titans of Truthtelling – two legendary journalists and one celebrated filmmaker – got together at Brooklyn’s BAM Theater to watch and then discuss one of the finest historical films ever made, All the President’s Men.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are considered journalism’s royalty. As rookie reporters for the Washington Post, they slowly, over two years and in more than two hundred articles, exposed the White House’s role in the cover-up of a burglary of Democratic headquarters at Washington’s now famous Watergate Hotel. Their reporting, widely considered the best journalistic scoop in the history of American newspapers, led to the resignation of the 37th President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. Read more »

By Rachel DeLetto

Rachel DeLetto, New York Law School class of 2009, won first place in the 2009 ASCAP Nathan Burkan Scholarship Competition for this article.  We congratulate Rachel on her win.

The article first appeared in the New York State Bar Association’s Entertainment, Art and Sports Journal.

The first time I heard about Girl Talk all I knew were the facts: A Pittsburgh DJ with a cult following had just released for sale online a new album that contained songs he had composed on his laptop by digitally blending hundreds of unlicensed samples of contemporary Top 40 hits. Since courts have consistently seen sampling of sound recordings as ripping off the creative product of others, an act that is not looked upon favorably in the world of copyright law, my initial legal assessment was that this guy was about to be eaten alive by a mob of angry copyright holders.

To read more of this article, please download the full PDF below.

DeLetto on Free Sampling

By Matthew Catania

The rights of citizens are repressed by their governments on a constant basis. The treatment of student Avery Doninger by the administration of the Lewis S. Mills High School of Connecticut is an example of this on an intimate scale.   That the courts have routinely denied motions for summary judgment based on the First Amendment on behalf of Ms. Doninger shows that the suppression of civil rights is supported from the top down. Read more »

By Matthew Catania

There are two privileges that are unique to professional journalists.  The first is the protection of state shield laws.  This means reporters cannot be compelled to reveal the identities of confidential sources except in matters of national security.  The public policy behind this is that such sources would be unwilling to leak newsworthy information to the press without the immunity from repercussions that comes with anonymity. The second privilege is a press badge.  These passes grant journalists entry to events that are closed to the general public such as crime scenes and government press conferences. This promotes the dissemination of news.  The only problem with these privileges is that bloggers weren’t considered journalists by the institutions responsible for granting these privileges in New York. Read more »