Media Law | Exam Ii | Court Cases

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Duncan v. WJLA

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Privacy -- A woman whose photograph was broadcast in a television report while the accompanying narration said "for the 20 million Americans who have herpes, its not a cure," had a valid false light claim because viewers might have inferred that she had herpes.

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Geisler v. Petrocelli

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Privacy -- If a reasonable person can identify the person, even if author claims it fiction, identification can be established.

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Deteresa v. ABC

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Privacy -- arising out of OJ murder case. must decide whether a television producer violated laws against eavesdropping when he surreptitiously taped his conversation with a woman who refused to appear on his show.

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Schifano v. Green County

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Privacy -- A photograph of men sitting at a greyhound race and used for advertising purposes was not found to be misappropriation because no unique quality or value was found in the photograph, and the men implicitly consented to the photograph being taken.

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Time Inc. v. Hill

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Privacy -- reaffirmed that information published in newspapers and magazines is not published for purposes of trade-- false-light case of Hill family that as held hostage in their own home

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McFarland v. Miller

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Privacy -- McFarland played Spanky in the Little Rascals. Miller owned a restaurant called Spanky McFarland's which had lots of pictures from the TV show. McFarland sued and won.

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Middler v. Ford

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Privacy -- hired “sound alikes.” When the agency tried to hire Bette Midler, it was rejected. The agency then turned to Ula Hedwig, who was a backup singer for Midler for ten years. Ford then used Ula’s performance in its commercial. After the commercial was aired, Midler was told by a number of people that it sounded exactly like her. Midler then sued Ford Motor Company alleging the right of publicity.

http://www.michaelrisch.com/tiki/Midler+v.+Ford+Motor+Co.

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Onassis v. Christian Dior

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Privacy -- the court said it was appropriation for a woman who looked like Jackie Kennedy Onassis to pose in advertisements as Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

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Cohen v. Herbal Concepts

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Privacy -- Because plaintiff had not established that defendant used his
picture for advertisement purposes, the court reversed the judgment of the
appellate court since there were no genuine issues of material fact that
defendant violated plaintiff’s privacy rights.

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Ali v. Playgirl

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Privacy -- Under New York Civil Rights Law, Playgirl violated Ali's "right of publicity." The illustration could be easily identified as Ali and was used for the "purposes of trade e.g., to attract attention." Ali did not consent the inclusion of his likeness in the illustration. Also, the common law right of publicity "protects his proprietary interest in the profitability of his public reputation or 'persona.'"

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Reno v. Condon

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Privacy -- was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA) against a Tenth Amendment challenge.

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McAndrews v. Roy

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Privacy -- Plaintiff, Cole McAndrews, filed suit in the District Court alleging that on Tuesday, April 7, 1959, his picture was published in the Baton Rouge State Times and Morning Advocate newspapers by the defendant, Alvin Roy, for the purpose of advertisement for Roy's healths studio. He contends that this was done without his permission and that such publication constituted an invasion of his privacy.

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Cox B’casting Co. v. Cohn

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Privacy -- Can publish private facts lawfully gained from public records. The case determined that a Georgia law prohibiting the release of a rape victim's name was unconstitutional.

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Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios

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Copyright Law -- is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use.

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Harper and Row v. Nation

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Copyright Law -- determined that fair use is not a defense to the appropriation of work by a famous political figure simply because of the public interest in learning of that political figure's account of an historic event.

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Salinger v. Random House

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Copyright Law -- This appeal presents the issue whether the biographer of a renowned author has made "fair use" of his subject's unpublished letters. J.D. Salinger sued Ian Hamilton and Random House publishing company for copyright infringement where they incorporated his unpublished copyrighted letters into a biography about him.

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AP v. INS

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Copyright Law -- AP sued INS for taking their articles and rewriting them to publish under their own name without attribution. Judge said news wasn't copyrightable but cited unfair competition.

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Miller v. Universal City Studios

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Copyright Law -- Universal produced and aired a television movie about the kidnapping. Miller brought an action alleging that Universal's making of the movie infringed his copyright in the book. The trial court instructed the jury that, while facts cannot be copyrighted, an author's research of factual matters is copyrightable

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Eldred v. Ashcroft

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Copyright Law -- 20-year retroactive extension of existing copyright terms did not violate the Copyright Clause or the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. D.C. Circuit's decision affirmed. (Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act)

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Nash v. CBS

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Copyright Law -- His claim of copyright infringement was dismissed on summary judgment, a ruling upheld by an appeals court. The court compared Nash's writing to "speculative works representing themselves as fact" and concluded that he could not claim a copyright on his analysis of historical facts, only his expression of them.

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Basic Books, Inc. v. Kinko’s

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Copyright Law -- all major publishing houses in New York City, brought this suit against Kinko's alleging that Kinko's infringed their copyrights when Kinko's copied excerpts from books, whose rights are held by the plaintiffs, without permission and without payment of required fees and sold the copies for a profit. Plaintiffs request relief in the form of statutory damages, injunction, declaratory judgment and attorney's fees and costs.

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Feist Pub. V. Rural Telephone Serv. Co.

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Copyright Law -- case establishing that information alone without a minimum of original creativity cannot be protected by copyright. In the case appealed, Feist had copied information from Rural's telephone listings to include in its own, after Rural had refused to license the information

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Walker v. Time-Life Films

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Copyright Law -- After the release of the film, an author, Tom Walker, filed a lawsuit against one of the production companies, Time-Life Television Films (legal owner of the script), claiming that the producers infringed on his book Fort Apache. United States copyright law does not protect concepts or ideas.

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Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music

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Copyright Law -- case that established that a commercial parody can qualify as fair use. That money is made does not make it impossible for a use to be fair; it is merely one of the components of a fair use analysis.

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Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. Penguin Books

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Copyright Law -- Not a fair use. An author mimicked the style of a Dr. Seuss book while re-telling the facts of the O.J. Simpson murder trial in The Cat NOT in the Hat! A Parody by Dr. Juice. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the book was a satire, not a parody, because the book did not poke fun at or ridicule Dr. Seuss. Instead, it merely used the Dr. Seuss characters and style to tell the story of the murder.

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Zemel v. Rusk

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Open Records/Meetings -- is a case on the right to travel and area restrictions on passports (travel to Cuba), holding that the Secretary of State is statutorily authorized to refuse to validate the passports of United States citizens for travel to Cuba and that the exercise of that authority is constitutionally permissible.

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Branzburg v. Hayes

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Open Records/Meetings -- The First Amendment's protection of press freedom does not give a reportorial privilege in court.

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Houchins v. KQED

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Open Records/Meetings -- case in which a radio station, KQED, claimed to have a "right of access", under the First Amendment, to interview particular prisoners in a jail. The court ruled that the Sheriff, and any other government agencies, had the right to prevent reporters from inspecting the jails or interviewing prisoners

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Baltimore Sun v. Ehrlich

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Open Records/Meetings -- had issued an executive order on November 18, 2004 banning state executive branch employees from talking to Sun columnist Michael Olesker and reporter David Nitkin, claiming that their coverage had been unfair to the administration.

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Desnick v. ABC

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Open Records/Meetings -- Eye doctor brought suit for tresspass on ABC, no work was disturbed, no embarrassingly intimate details were revealed, no trade secrets were stolen, etc. Therefore, plaintiffs cannot have a claim under the law of trespass.

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Berger v. Hanlon

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Open Records/Meetings -- the Court held that, although the agents did violate the Fourth Amendment, they were entitled to qualified immunity. The opinion stated that "police violate the Fourth Amendment rights of homeowners when they allow members of the media to accompany them during the execution of a warrant in their home

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Wolfson v. Lewis

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Open Records/Meetings -- Two broadcast journalists were working on an expose on the high salries being paid to U.S. Healthcare executives [Wolfson]. The journalists invaded their privacy, although they say that obtaining salary information can be held by the 1st Amend. Wolfsons won.

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Long v. IRS

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Open Records/Meetings -- The Longs requested information from the IRS regarding its Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program. IRS withheld zipcodes on the released information. Section 6103 deems taxpayer return information confidential and gives the Secretary of the Treasury discretion concerning disclosure of information used in establishing standards for the selection of returns for examination

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Wash. Post v. Dept. Homeland Sec.

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Open Records/Meetings -- The Washington Post seeks records concerning individuals
who visited Vice President Richard Cheney and his senior staff at both the White House Complex and the Vice President’s residence from the Secret Service. The Post claims that it is entitled to this information under the FOIA and that under FOIA, the Secret Service must process and fulfill the record request on an expedited schedule.

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AP v. Department of Defense

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Open Records/Meetings -- Plaintiff Associated Press brought an action under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel access to records pertaining to the detention of hundreds of persons at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. AP seeks access to documents sufficient to identify all past and present detainees held at Guantanamo

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Sims v. CIA

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Open Records/Meetings -- we granted certiorari to decide whether the Freedom of Information Act requires the Agency to disclose the institutional affiliations of persons whose identities are exempt from disclosure as "intelligence sources." (LSD case on students)

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NLRB v. Sears

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Open Records/Meetings -- the Office of the General Counsel in the course of deciding whether or not to permit the filing with the Board of unfair labor practice complaints.

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NYT v. NASA

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Open Records/Meetings -- the FOIA [does] not apply to "personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. NASA felt that it would invade the astronaut's privacy to release the final words of their flight before their crash.