"Music industry experts and copyright law attorneys say the cases, as well as Trump’s decision to continue playing certain songs despite artists’ requests that he desist, underscore the complex legalities of copyright infringement in today’s digital, streaming and licensing era — and could set an important precedent on the of use of popular music in political campaigns."
Associated Press via Politico; Trump campaign ordered to stop using classic R&B song; Associated Press via Politico
"A federal judge in Atlanta ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump and his campaign must stop using the song “Hold On, I’m Comin’” while the family of one of the song’s co-writers pursues a lawsuit against the former president over its use.
The estate of Isaac Hayes Jr. filed a lawsuit last month alleging that Trump, his campaign and several of his allies had infringed its copyright and should pay damages. After a hearing on the estate’s request for an emergency preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash ruled that Trump must stop using the song, but he denied a request to force the campaign to take down any existing videos that include the song."
Ella Creamer , The Guardian; Utah outlaws books by Judy Blume and Sarah J Maas in first statewide ban
"Books by Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, Rupi Kaur and Sarah J Maas are among 13 titles that the state of Utah has ordered to be removed from all public school classrooms and libraries.
This marks the first time a state has outlawed a list of books statewide, according to PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman, who oversees the organisation’s free expression programs.
The books on the list were prohibited under a new law requiring all of Utah’s public school districts to remove books if they are banned in either three districts, or two school districts and five charter schools. Utah has 41 public school districts in total.
The 13 books could be banned under House bill 29, which became effective from 1 July, because they were considered to contain “pornographic or indecent” material. The list “will likely be updated as more books begin to meet the law’s criteria”, according to PEN America.
Twelve of the 13 titles were written by women. Six books by Maas, a fantasy author, appear on the list, along with Oryx and Crake by Atwood, Milk and Honey by Kaur and Forever by Blume. Two books by Ellen Hopkins appear, as well as Elana K Arnold’s What Girls Are Made Of and Craig Thompson’s Blankets.
Implementation guidelines say that banned materials must be “legally disposed of” and “may not be sold or distributed”."
MARK SHERMAN , AP; The Supreme Court rules for Biden administration in a social media dispute with conservative states
"The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.
By a 6-3 vote, the justices threw out lower-court rulings that favored Louisiana, Missouri and other parties in their claims that federal officials leaned on the social media platforms to unconstitutionally squelch conservative points of view.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court that the states and other parties did not have the legal right, or standing, to sue. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The decision should not affect typical social media users or their posts."
Laura Heymann , Bloomberg Law; ‘Trump Too Small’ Trademark Case Morphs Into Free Speech Debate
"The US Supreme Court’s June 13 decision in the “Trump Too Small” trademark case revealed a potential rift among the justices on First Amendment jurisprudence but did little to advance intellectual property law...
Trademark law, the Supreme Court has said in prior cases, is primarily about two goals: preventing confusion among consumers by ensuring accurate source identification and preserving trademark owners’ reputation and goodwill. For these justices, the names clause passed muster because prohibiting the registration of personal names without consent was self-evidently reasonable in light of these purposes; no further analysis was required."
David French, The New York Times; MAGA’s Violent Threats Are Warping Life in America
"So we called the local sheriff, shared the threat, and asked if the department could send someone to check our house.
Minutes later, a young deputy called to tell me all was quiet at our home. When I asked if he would mind checking back frequently, he said he’d stay in front of our house all night. Then he asked, “Why did you get this threat?”
I hesitated before I told him. Our community is so MAGA that I had a pang of concern about his response. “I’m a columnist,” I said, “and we’ve had lots of threats ever since I wrote against Donald Trump.”
The deputy paused for a moment. “I’m a vet,” he said, “and I volunteered to serve because I believe in our Constitution. I believe in free speech.” And then he said words I’ll never forget: “You keep speaking, and I’ll stand guard.”
I didn’t know that deputy’s politics and I didn’t need to. When I heard his words, I thought, that’s it. That’s the way through. Sometimes we are called to speak. Sometimes we are called to stand guard. All the time we can at least comfort those under threat, telling them with words and deeds that they are not alone. If we do that, we can persevere. Otherwise, the fear will be too much for good people to bear."
"Guidelines for an Internet for Trust
Safeguarding freedom of expression and the right to information while dealing with dis- and misinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories requires a multistakeholder approach. This is the reason why UNESCO, the leading UN agency for the promotion and protection of freedom of expression and to information, is launching Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms. The Guidelines outline a set of duties, responsibilities and roles for States, digital platforms, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, media, academia, the technical community and other stakeholders to enable the environment where freedom of expression and information are in the core of digital platforms governance processes. The Guidelines were produced through a multi-stakeholder consultation that gathered more than 10,000 comments from 134 countries. These global-scale consultations fostered inclusive participation, ensuring a diversity of voices to be heard, including those from groups in situation of marginalization and vulnerability.
Cultivating an Internet of Trust is a shared responsibility among all stakeholders. It calls upon us all to sustain an enabling environment for freedom of expression and the right to information."
0,000 comments from 134 countries. These global-scale consultations fostered inclusive participation, ensuring a diversity of voices to be heard, including those from groups in situation of marginalization and vulnerabilityJon Henley, The Guardian; 85% of people worry about online disinformation, global survey finds
"More than 85% of people are worried about the impact of online disinformation and 87% believe it has already harmed their country’s politics, according to a global survey, as the United Nations announced a plan to tackle the phenomenon.
Audrey Azoulay, director general of the UN’s culture body, Unesco, told reporters on Monday that false information and hate speech online – accelerated and amplified by social media platforms – posed “major risks to social cohesion, peace and stability”.
Regulation was urgently needed “to protect access to information … while at the same time protecting freedom of expression and human rights”, Azoulay said as she presented a “governance blueprint” for governments, regulators and platforms."
SCIENCE NEWS STAFF, Science; Prominent journal editor fired for endorsing satirical article about Israel-Hamas conflict
"Michael Eisen, editor-in-chief of the prominent open access journal eLife and a longtime critic of traditional journals, says he is losing that job for publicly endorsing a satirical article that criticized people dying in Gaza for not condemning the recent attacks on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas...
Eisen has previously been a frequent, feisty participant in debates about scientific publishing, doggedly supporting the development of free access to journal articles. In 2003, he co-founded the Public Library of Science (PLOS), whose journal PLOS ONE grew to become one of the largest open-access journals. Authors pay a fee so that their articles in PLOS journals are free to read when published. Eisen has criticized the paywalls still in place at many subscription journals as slowing the progress of science and the diffusion of useful findings. But critics of PLOS’s model have suggested author fees create an incentive for journals to maximize the number of papers published at the expense of adequate peer review and quality and can create barriers for authors with limited resources."
, The New York Times; How the Humble Paperback Helped Win World War II
"The paperbacks were intended to help soldiers pass the time. But they were also meant to remind them what they were fighting for, and draw a sharp contrast between American ideals and Nazi book burnings.
That’s an aspect of the story that has only grown more resonant, amid today’s partisan battles over book bans. And Manning, for one, sees a clear lesson.
“During World War II, the American public came out very much one way,” she said. “And that was that there should be no restrictions on what people read."...
Books were seen not just as diversions, but as weapons in the fight for democracy. In American propaganda, the dedication to the free exchange of ideas was explicitly contrasted with Nazi book burnings. In a 1942 message to booksellers, President Franklin D. Roosevelt extolled freedom of expression, which was at the heart of his idea of the Four Freedoms. “No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny,” he said.
But just how to get those weapons into soldiers hands was complicated. Shipping heavy books overseas was impractical. So in early 1943, the Council on Books in Wartime, a publishers’ group formed in 1942, approached Ray Trautman, the Army’s chief librarian, with the idea of producing special paperbacks for soldiers overseas. The result was the Armed Services Editions. which were designed to fit in either the breast or pants pocket of a standard-issue uniform."
Abbey White, The Hollywood Reporter; Ariana Grande, Guillermo del Toro, Padma Lakshmi and More Sign Open Letter Denouncing Book Bans and Their “Chilling Effect” (Exclusive)
"The letter encourages signatories and readers to address challenges at the local level across U.S. school districts, while calling out book bans as “restrictive behavior” that is “antithetical to free speech and expression.” It also underscores the “chilling effect” these bans can have “on the broader creative field.”...
“It’s embarrassing that we are banning books in this country, in this culture, in this day and age. And it’s dangerous that a handful of individuals are deciding that any book with Black and queer people is divisive,” said Burton, executive producer of the 2023 documentary The Right to Read. “We are calling on everyone to join us in raising their voices to uphold artistic freedom, embrace multicultural history and put a stop once and for all to book bans.”"
AP; Judge blocks Arkansas law allowing librarians to be criminally charged over ‘harmful’ materials
"Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday."
Gregory S. Schneider, The Washington Post ; Public libraries are the latest front in culture war battle over books
"Resident Tina Johnson, 49, followed, saying she had spent 20 years working with children as a behavioral therapist. She pointed out that banned books disproportionately feature minorities and marginalized people.
“Banning books is not about books. Banning books is about people,” she said. “It’s about telling some children in our community their family is perverse and unwelcome. … Samuels is just one library, in our little county, but it is the front line, as is every library being targeted right now by systematic attacks on the First Amendment.”"
Emily St. James, The New York Times; I Am Being Pushed Out of One of the Last Public Squares, the Library
"The library’s predominant role in our culture is to provide a place to find the information or art you are seeking. But it has another role that’s equally important: a place where everyone is welcome.
When you step inside a library, you are confronted with a wealth of information some other people have curated for you, just by being there."
, The New York Times; How Do You Protest in the Face of Censorship? An Empty Sign.
"The blank sign, for the protester who wields it and the government that disdains it, is full of potential: It is a tabula rasa, upon which every imaginable complaint, exhortation, remonstration, provocation, taunt, threat and irrefutable truth might someday be inscribed. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that those things are already written there — figuratively, at least — in invisible ink. The signs say nothing; they speak volumes."
JOHN C MORGAN , Reading Eagle ; Everyday ethics: In praise of banned books
Absolute freedom can lead to anarchy. Absolute control can lead to tyranny of the few over the many. Think of Russian state television as an example of what happens with complete control, and the new version of Twitter as what happens when little control is exercised. Somewhere in between these two extremes must be a reasoned solution that protects freedom of expression as well as community values that is legally and morally appropriate."
NPR/Fresh Air ; Journalist Maria Ressa explains 'How to Stand Up to a Dictator'
"DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I am Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. Our guest today, Maria Ressa, is an international journalist who's widely celebrated around the world. She was Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2018 and last year won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. But in her home country, the Philippines, Ressa faces multiple criminal charges and regulatory actions, which could shut down Rappler, the online news organization she heads, and land her in jail for decades. Rappler drew the anger of President Rodrigo Duterte, known for his violent campaign against alleged drug users, because the news site did stories about corruption and cronyism and exposed a web of online disinformation networks with ties to Duterte.
Before co-founding Rappler in 2011, Ressa spent many years covering Southeast Asia for CNN, breaking important stories about Islamic terrorist networks. Ressa's story isn't just that of a crusading journalist exposing corruption, though it is that; she's also focused on the role of social media networks, who, she says, are weakening democracy by enabling the rise of online disinformation and hate mobs in the service of authoritarian rulers around the world. Her new memoir is "How To Stand Up To A Dictator: The Fight For Our Future."...
DAVIES: To kind of summarize here, it sounds like what you're proposing is that news organizations need to overcome some of their competitive instincts and work together when there is important fact-checking to be done, connect them to other organizations in a way that puts energy and emotion into it and get that out there.
RESSA: Think about it like this. Like, if you don't have integrity of facts, you cannot have integrity of elections. And ultimately, what that means is that these elections will be swayed by information warfare. I mean, you know, it's funny. Americans actually look at the midterms. And they say, well, it wasn't as bad as it could be. Death by a thousand cuts - it's still bad. And if we follow, you know, what - the trend that we're seeing, if nothing significant changes in our information ecosystem, in the way we deliver the news, we will elect more illiberal leaders democratically in 2023, in 2024.
And what they do is they crumble institutions of democracy in their own countries, like you've seen in mine. But they do more than that. They ally together globally. And what they do is, at a certain point, the geopolitical power shift globally will change. Democracy will die. That point is 2024. We must figure out what civic engagement, what we do as citizens today, to reclaim, to make sure democracy survives."
Dan Milmo and Alex Hern, The Guardian ; Twitter takeover: fears raised over disinformation and hate speech
"Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition has been polarizing, sparking reactions from politicians, regulators and non-profits across different continents.
Some have expressed concerns about potential changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies now that it’s in the hands of the Tesla billionaire, while others celebrated how they expect the platform’s newly minted leader will handle content and speech on Twitter.
Senior politicians in the UK and Europe on Friday warned Musk over content moderation on Twitter, with the EU stressing the platform will “fly by our rules” and a UK minister expressing concerns over hate speech under the billionaire’s ownership.
The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, wrote on the platform on Friday that “in Europe, the bird will fly by our rules”, in response to Musk’s earlier tweet saying “the bird is freed” in apparent confirmation that he had bought the business.
The EU is introducing the Digital Services Act, which includes provisions for removal of illegal content including hate speech."
The Unburnable Book: Margaret Atwood’s THE HANDMAID'S TALE
"To benefit PEN America’s work defending freedom of expression, Penguin Random House is proud to partner with Margaret Atwood and Sotheby’s to offer an unburnable edition of the classic, and often banned, novel The Handmaid’s Tale."
