Six Ohio state senators have introduced a bill that would compel individuals media organizations to erase stories from the Internet about former convicts whose case records are sealed by the courts.

The bill in question, Senate Bill 291, would also penalize organizations to the tune of $250,000 - with a maximum fine of up to $1 million - for failing to delete the information and then knowingly publishing it on their websites.

Under current Ohio law, first-time non-violent offenders are able to get the courts to expunge their records. The bill being pushed by the senators would also extend that privilege to people convicted of multiple offenses. In order to be eligible to seek court approval, a convict would need to maintain a clean record and the crime in question would need to be more than five years old.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, the bill would require individuals and private businesses to erase the historical record by destroying records they hold about the convictions of those whose cases are sealed. The relevant provision in the proposal reads: Whoever violates division (C)(2) of this section by knowingly releasing or otherwise disseminating or making available information over the internet is guilty of releasing sealed records and shall be fined one million dollars.

But critics have attacked the bill as posing a threat to freedom of speech. The Wheeling News-Register, wrote in an editorial that the bill simply was unworkable. Here at the newspaper, for example, we have computerized records of criminal reports dating back more than five years. It would be very difficult to find and erase them all. Smith's bill clearly is unconstitutional. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, even when those guilty of old crimes would prefer their offenses be forgotten.

Cee Lo's profanity-laced single, with a catchy Motown backing track and the blunt title F**k You, has become a phenomenon since its online release, driven in large part by YouTube views of the song's inventive video.

Zano Ludgood, a record shop manager at Criminal Records in Atlanta, Cee Lo's hometown, says viral videos act as advertisements for when the actual product goes on sale.

People are excited now about Cee Lo, and if they like a song, even if they download it, they'll still come out and buy the complete album, Ludgood says. People talk about record stores dying, but social media works with us, it's a great way to build buzz.

The buzz on Cee Lo has been deafening, even if his new song has a title unfit for a family newspaper. Soon after a celebrity release on MySpace, it had become a smash in the clubs.

When the DJ dropped it, I was like, 'Cee Lo's got another one!' says Mizz Shyneka, an on-air personality at Atlanta's HOT 107.9FM. Everybody was dancing, and the people that hadn't heard the record were all trying to listen. I wish they could hear it on the radio, but given the title, I don't think there's any way around that.

MTV has reported the track will be re-released as Forget You, The idea of leaking an explicit track and then re-releasing it for the radio isn't new. In 2006 Snoop Dogg made a song called I Wanna Love You that originally had a different chorus, with the word love dropped in favour of a more explicit verb. The song went No. 1 on Billboard's singles chart.

An Alaskan law that goes into effect on July 1, and deals with the electronic distribution of indecent material to minors, has come under fire by free speech advocates.

Section 11.61.128 of the Alaska Statutes, signed into law by Governor Sean Parnell in May, calls for parties to be criminally liable for media transmissions (or hosting) of material that is considered harmful to minors. Additionally, violators can face up to two years in prison, could be forced to forfeit their business and would have to register as sex offenders.

Those in opposition label the law as broad censorship, and claim that it bans from the Internet anything that may be 'harmful to minors,' including material adults have a First Amendment right to view.

Hostility to the law has resulted in a lawsuit attempting to block it, brought forth by groups like the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA), the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, the Freedom To Read Foundation and the Association of American Publishers.

Citing the First and Fourteenth Amendments, in addition to the Constitution's Commerce Clause, the lawsuit seeks to have the law declared unconstitutional.

We have recently received a legal threat that we feel deserves attention and airing for a variety of reasons.

...2. The threats are quite incredible, demanding that we shut down the entire site of Techdirt, due to a comment (or, potentially, comments) that the client did not like.

...5. Most importantly, this threat is coming from the UK, and the lawyers insist that they will take it to court in the UK. This makes it rather timely and newsworthy for an entirely different reason. Just a few weeks ago we wrote about the new SPEECH Act that was passed into law to protect against libel tourism. As the Congressional record shows, the law was specifically designed to protect US businesses from libel judgments that violate Section 230 -- and the bill's backers explicitly call out libel judgments made in the UK. In other words, the SPEECH Act explicitly protects us from exactly the sort of threat that these lawyers and their client are making against us:

...

Given the newsworthy nature of an example of where the brand new law (thankfully) protects us, as well as the fact that we do not feel it is decent or right for anyone to demand we shut down our entire site or be sued halfway around the world, because he does not appreciate a comment someone made about him, we are publishing the letter that was sent to us.

Thanks in part to the new law, we have no obligation to respond to Mr. Morris, his friend or the lawyers at Addlestone Keane, who (one would hope) will better advise their clients not to pursue such fruitless legal threats in the future.

...Read the full article

An American Academy of Pediatrics' policy statement has claimed that kids are 'bombarded' with 'inappropriate' sexual messages and images. The AAP committee said: everything from graphic sexual lyrics in songs to ubiquitous erectile dysfunction drug advertisements air all hours of the day and night.

Television, film, music, and the Internet are all becoming increasingly sexually explicit, yet information on abstinence, sexual responsibility, and birth control remains rare, they write.

Among the points the panel makes:

• Only three reality dating shows were on the air in 1997 compared with more than 30 today, including Temptation Island, which bring participants together for the sole purpose of seeing who 'hooks up,' the authors said.
• In a national survey of 1,500 10- to 17-year-olds, nearly half of the Internet users had been exposed to online pornography in the previous year.
• A national survey of 1,300 teenagers and young adults found nearly 20% had sent or posted nude pictures of videos of themselves.
• Advertisements featuring women are as likely to show them in suggestive or revealing clothing or nude as fully clothed.

Kids get a lot of their knowledge about sex through the media, the authors write. Perhaps we should take a good look at what we're telling them.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is appealing a federal court ruling that its indecency policy is unconstitutional, arguing the decision makes it all but impossible for the agency to enforce restrictions on broadcasting nudity or profanity.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York struck down the FCC's indecency policy last month, calling it a violation of the First Amendment. The court said the rule forces broadcasters to self-censor in order to avoid fines for accidentally broadcasting nudity or profanity.

The FCC filed a petition asking the court to reconsider the decision. The three-judge panel's decision in July raised serious concerns about the Commission's ability to protect children and families from indecent broadcast programming, FCC general counsel Austin Schlick said. The Commission remains committed to empowering parents and protecting children, and looks forward to the court of appeals' further consideration of our arguments.

The matter is expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court, which upheld the FCC's policy last year on procedural grounds but did not address the constitutional arguments.

The case stems from live broadcasts of the Billboard Music Awards in 2002 and 2003, during which musician Cher and reality television performer Nicole Ritchie used unscripted expletives.

The FCC changed its indecency policy in 2004 following a similar incident at the Golden Globes involving U2 lead singer Bono. The agency began to levy record fines against broadcasters for fleeting expletives uttered on live television.

The Commission ruled in 2006 that, under its new policy, both Billboard broadcasts were indecent. Fox, which broadcast the awards shows, responded by appealing that decision. In its appeal Fox was joined by other broadcasters who opposed the FCC's stricter enforcement policies.

The court of appeals initially ruled in favor of the broadcasters, claiming the FCC had failed to properly articulate a reason for the rule changes, but their decision was reversed by the Supreme Court. The court of appeals then ruled in favor of Fox on constitutional grounds, setting the stage for the FCC's latest appeal.

US supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor has said the court is likely to have to rule on the issue of balancing national security and freedom of speech due to WikiLeaks posting a cache of US military records about the Afghan war.

Sotomayor said the incident, which has been condemned by the Pentagon, was likely to provoke legislation in Congress that would require judicial scrutiny.

Her comments came in response to a question about security and free speech by a student at Denver university. The judge said she could not answer because that question is very likely to come before me. She said the incident, and others, are going to provoke legislation that's already being discussed in Congress, and so some of it is going to come up before [the supreme court].

Sotomayor said the balance between national security and free speech is a constant struggle in this society, between our security needs and our first amendment rights, and one that has existed throughout our history.

An ad, which depicted a marijuana leaf, began running on Aug. 7. Just over a week later, Facebook pulled it, saying the image violated its policy against promoting smoking.

Organizers at Just Say Now, a bipartisan coalition fighting to legalize and regulate marijuana just like alcohol, said they spent roughly $5,000 on the ads, which received about 38 million views in the week they ran.

Michael Whitney, the group's online campaign director, said Facebook's move is akin to striking a candidate's face from his posters while he's running for office. Marijuana legalization is on the ballot this November in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon and South Dakota.

We are talking about free political speech, Whitney said. We aren't encouraging people to do anything illegal.

Facebook said they have no problem with Just Say Now advertising on its pages as long as it uses a different image, Andrew Noyes, the manager of Facebook's public policy communications, said in an e-mail to The New York Times.

The image of a marijuana leaf is classified with all smoking products and therefore is not acceptable under our policies, he said, adding that Facebook does not permit images of drugs, drug paraphernalia or tobacco in any advertisements.

Just Say Now began its campaign earlier this month, arguing that legalizing marijuana would reduce crime at the border and could yield an additional $40 billion in revenue annually.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) has announced that scenes of smoking in high-grossing films fell to 1,935 incidents last year, down 49% from the recent peak of 3,967 in 2005.

This may in part be the result of a change in 2007 that includes smoking incidence in MPAA ratings, following four years of requests from state attorneys general and other groups. The MPAA has refused, however, to make smoking an automatic R-rating, even with an exclusion for historical accuracy in films like Good Night and Good Luck.

A significant factor in reduced smoking onscreen may also be pressure from websites that specifically review smoking in movies. Smoke Free Movies, a project of Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, has a directory of actors with more than three smoking roles. Scene Smoking from Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails, shows how smoking is shown in films, classifying it by whether it is the lead actor, a credited non-star, or an extra, whether the brand is shown, and whether the smoker is a good guy or a bad guy.

Earlier this week Jennifer Aniston came under fire for comments during an appearance on Regis and Kelly. While a guest on the morning show, Aniston made the comment comparing herself to a retard, saying, Yeah, I got to play dress up. I do it for a living, like a retard.

The fallout from the incident was immediate with disability groups calling her choice of words inappropriate and offensive.

In a statement released to TV Guide, a representative for the Special Olympics commented, The Special Olympics is always disappointed when the R-word is used, especially by someone who is influential to society. The pervasive use of the R-word, even in an off the cuff self-deprecating manner, dehumanizes people with intellectual disabilities and perpetuates painful stereotypes that are a great source of suffering and negative stigma.

The bad press did nothing to help Aniston's new film, The Switch which she was on the show to promote in the first place.

The Switch a romantic comedy starting Aniston and Jason Bateman bombed at the box office this weekend, grossing just $8.1 million. So did Aniston's talk show gaffe tank the film? The low box office is definitely due in part to some tepid reviews and stiff weekend competition. However, one can't help but question whether her comment had an effect as well.

After the MPAA handed an R rating for language to an acclaimed documentary about NFL-player-turned-Army-Ranger Pat Tillman, the makers of the movie have lost an appeal to have the rating changed to PG-13.

The filmmakers tried to argue that The Tillman Story – which delves into the official military cover-up of Tillman's death in Afghanistan by friendly fire and the way in which he was exploited as a potent patriotic symbol — is exactly the kind of historically significant film that should be exposed to as many young people as possible, not hidden from them due to squeamishness over some bad words.

Offsite: I'm Pat Fucking Tillman

5th September 2010. See article from chicagotribune.com

According to the MPPA's ratings and classification board. Habitually easy on violence but far more nervous regarding language and skin, the MPAA ratings board issued director Amir Bar-Lev's film an R rating for its 16 instances of the f-word.

Bar-Lev said in a separate conversation Wednesday: If we had sat down and written the film, which of course we didn't since it's a documentary, and used that language to titillate or amuse people — that'd be one context. But we're talking about real-life situations when people are being shot at, or consumed with grief, or a couple of key moments where we show you how Pat Tillman's family sometimes talks.

The veracity of the language is pertinent, Bar-Lev said, given Tillman's likely last words, as he was being fired on, mistakenly, by three of his fellow American soldiers: I'm Pat f---ing Tillman!

...Read the full article

President Barack Obama has signed the SPEECH Act into US law, a move designed to protect US writers and reporters from England's controversial defamation laws.

The Act, tabled by Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen, makes libel judgments against American writers in foreign territories unenforceable if they are perceived to counter the First Amendment right to free speech.

The Libel Reform Campaign has expressed concern that our reputation is being damaged internationally due to our restrictive, archaic and costly libel laws which cost 140 times the European equivalent.

The coalition government has said it will table a draft Bill to reform our libel laws in January 2011 after the campaign led by English PEN, Index on Censorship and Sense About Science. The campaign has 52,000 signatories to its petition and all three main political parties committed in their general election manifestos to libel reform.

Jo Glanville, Editor of Index on Censorship said:

The US's response to our libel laws has already played a key role in advancing the campaign for reform in the UK. I'm hopeful that the government's draft bill will address the issue of libel tourism, which has a clear chilling effect on freedom of speech, and make it harder for claimants from outside the EU to bully publishers, NGOs, bloggers and investigative journalists into silence.

Síle Lane, Public Liaison of Sense About Science said:

As other countries move to protect their citizens from the chilling effect of our libel laws we urge bloggers, science writers, NGOs and small publications facing threats and bankruptcy to keep up the pressure on the Government to ensure that the proposed draft libel bill brings the meaningful change that is so urgently needed.

The website WikiLeaks recently publicly disclosed more than 70,000 classified US field reports from the war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon says it wants them back.

Press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters the Pentagon was formally demanding – through the news media – that WikiLeaks return the reports, as well as 15,000 additional records the website says it might release soon: We are asking them to do the right thing and not further exacerbate the damage done to date. If doing the right thing is not good enough for them, we'll figure out what other alternatives we have.

He declined to elaborate on whether the defence department was contemplating legal action but said the FBI and the justice department were investigating how the documents were leaked.

Morrell acknowledged that the genie is out of the bottle in regard to the more than 70,000 reports that are not only posted on the WikiLeaks site, but have since been copied and downloaded by people all over the world. He said the Pentagon was primarily interested in blocking the release of the 15,000 other documents.

Political tweets and Facebook status updates should be held to the same standards as paid advertising that voters see on television, radio or in Californian's mailboxes, says California's campaign watchdog agency, The Fair Political Practices Commission, in a report. The Fair Political Practices Commission is considering how to regulate new forms of political activity on Facebook or in a text message.

It's become necessary as politicians in California and elsewhere announce their candidacies and major campaign policies through Twitter, YouTube and a host of social networking sites, said FPPC Chairman Dan Schnur. He also added that California's 36-year-old Political Reform Act needs a modern-day re-write to keep up with the times.

The report reportedly outlines possible hurdles to regulating such online content, like how one would include full disclosure of what group or individual is behind a political message. The changes the commission makes to state law would have to give regulators the flexibility to respond to swiftly evolving technologies, the report says.

The report does draw the line when it comes to the right of regular citizens to tweet or use Facebook to talk about politics or politicians:

People tweeting about someone is typically not something you would regulate, said Barbara O'Connor, professor emeritus of communications and the former director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento. When it becomes an ad, it's a different story. When it becomes an ad it really is a replacement for a 30-second spot for a new generation.

A new documentary from Yael Hersonski called A Film Unfinished takes propaganda footage from the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII and reveals the cinematic deception of the frames.

Hersonski outlines how many of the scenes of real life were crafted by the filmmakers to try and show a hideous disconnect between the Ghetto's rich Jews and poor Jews -- scenes of passerby walking over corpses are juxtaposed with lavish dinners (entirely crafted by the Nazis) and entertainment (where people were beaten if they didn't look like they were having enough fun).

It is a harrowing account, for sure, but also a worthy one. However, the documentary has now hit a snag, getting an R rating from the MPAA, which has inspired the Beastie Boys' (and Oscilloscope founder) Adam Yauch to speak out.

In a press release, Oscilloscope Laboratories has announced that they will appeal the R rating, given to the film for disturbing images of holocaust atrocities including graphic nudity. By banning people under the age of 17 from viewing the film without their parent/guardian, the rating will keep the documentary out of classrooms and educational venues.

Adam Yauch says: This is too important of a historical document to ban from classrooms. While there's no doubt that Holocaust atrocities are displayed, if teachers feel their students are ready to understand what happened, it's essential that young people are given the opportunity to see this film. Why deny them the chance to learn about this critical part of our human history? I understand that the MPAA wants to protect children's eyes from things that are too overwhelming, but they've really gone too far this time. It's bullshit.

The graphic nudity consists of shots of the piles of dead, naked Jewish residents waiting for mass burial. There is another scene where Jewish men and women were forced (at gun point) to strip and bathe together.

It's incredibly hard to watch. But it's also incredibly important to watch. Though, as A Film Unfinished points out, it can dangerous, film and photographs are essential to understanding and comprehending the atrocities and impact of tragedies like the Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking, and every other bit of violence that has, does, and will happen in the world. Words, in this case, simply aren't enough.

Update: R rating stands after appeal

6th August 2010. Based on article from nymag.com

Beastie Boy Adam Yauch's appeal of the MPAA's decision to give an R rating to the Holocaust documentary A Film Unfinished has failed. The rating was upheld by the ratings board by a 12-3 vote.

Yauch expressed his frustration with the decision earlier in the week, arguing the nudity in the film - which compiles footage of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 shot for a German propaganda movie - should have been viewed through a historical and educational lens.: In a world where young people are bombarded with meaningless entertainment, it's unfortunate that a film with real educational and historic value would be denied to them by an organization that is supposed to be working to help them. I still have hope that the MPAA will reconsider at some point in the future, so young people will be able to learn from this film.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has threatened Wikipedia with legal action if the online encyclopedia doesn't remove the FBI's seal from its site. The seal is featured in an encyclopedia entry about the FBI.

Wikipedia isn't backing down, however. The online encyclopedia sent a chiding letter to the FBI, explaining why, in its view, the FBI is off its legal rocker.

In short, then, we are compelled as a matter of law and principle to deny your demand for removal of the FBI Seal from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, the Wikimedia Foundation's general counsel, Mike Godwin, wrote in a letter to the FBI, which was posted online by the New York Times: We are in contact with outside counsel in this matter, and we are prepared to argue our view in court.

In a letter dated July 22, and also posted online by the Times, the FBI told Wikipedia it must remove the bureau's seal because the FBI had not approved use of the image: The FBI has not authorized use of the FBI seal on Wikipedia. The inclusion of a high quality graphic of the FBI seal on Wikipedia is particularly problematic, because it facilitates both deliberate and unwitting copying and reprinting of the seal's image.

The FBI's deputy general counsel, David Larson, cities a particular law that says duplicating an official insignia is illegal without permission.

But Wikipedia strikes back on that point, saying the FBI redacted the most important part of that U.S. code, which defines an insignia as any badge, identification card, or other insignia. Badges and identification cards are physical manifestations that may be used by a possessor to invoke the authority of the federal government. An encyclopedia article is not. The use of the image on Wikipedia is not for the purpose of deception or falsely to represent anyone as an agent of the federal government.

The magazine Vanity Fair posted the FBI's seal on its website in a symbol of jest. And, as the blog Geekosystem says, an editor on the site aggregator Reddit jokes that maybe the FBI got Wikipedia confused with WikiLeaks — the site that's been causing a stir lately over leaked war documents.

Gaea, the controversial beaver sculpture, has been vandalized, but quickly cleaned up and returned to normal.

The Bemidji Police Department received an anonymous phone call saying that the sculpture had been defaced with black spray paint.

The spray paint covered what artist Deborah A. Davis has said are the hands of a praying woman.

While Davis has said the front of the sculpture shows Mother Earth praying and the circles are roses coming forth from her hands, others have viewed the sculpture differently, seeing, instead, a portion of the female anatomy.

Police arrived on the site after 11 p.m. Tuesday and found the paint to be tacky the touch, according to a police report.

Davis, in an e-mail sent at 12:35 a.m., said she and Jeremy Anway, a Bemidji artist, repaired the sculpture.

John Stagliano was set free last week when a federal judge ended his obscenity trial on procedural grounds. If convicted, John would have been jailed for 32 years and had his home and business confiscated.

Instead, a few million dollars of your tax money was wasted by a Department of Justice investigation, purchase, viewing, and indictment of Milk Nymphos, Storm Squirters, and Fetish Fanatic.

The charge was simply that the DVDs appealed to the average person's prurient interest, were patently offensive, and lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. These are the actual words of the Miller Test that guide the law. If you can get a jury to agree that a given recording, painting, book, DVD, or stage show meets these three tests, the government can declare the thing obscene. It then loses its First Amendment protection, and it creator and distributor can be sent to jail.

...Read the full article

It's back to square one for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

After months of negotiations with former Nebraska Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey to become head of the movie industry's chief lobbying arm in Washington, talks broke down between the two.

The MPAA declined to elaborate on why negotiations had ended.

In May 2009, Iowa resident Christopher Handley, a collector of comic books, pled guilty to federal charges of importing and possessing obscene cartoon drawings of children; he faced a maximum prison sentence of 15 years, for a crime involving neither actual children nor actual child porn.

A few weeks later, a Tennessee prosecutor charged Michael Wayne Campbell with aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, for photo-shopping the faces of three girls on to the nude bodies of three adult women. How might this constitute a crime (outside of Iran)?

It is also a crime – a federal crime – to share your sexual fantasies about children in private communications with other adults. The US Fourth Circuit court of appeals declined to review the conviction of Dwight Whorley for sharing fantasies about sexually abusing children in purely textual email exchanges between consenting adults. Like Christopher Handley, Whorley was also convicted of receiving obscene Japanese cartoon drawings of children. Be careful what you imagine.

...Read the full article

The US senate has passed legislation to protect US journalists, writers and publishers from libel tourists — litigants who sue Americans in foreign jurisdictions which place a lower emphasis on free speech

The legislation was specifically designed to negate the threat of English laws, amid claims that the UK has became an international libel tribunal. One case in particular incensed US politicians, that of New York based academic Rachel Ehrenfeld who was sued in London despite only 23 copies of her book, on the financing of terrorism, being sold in the UK.

The bill, co-sponsored by Democrat Patrick Leahy and Republican Jeff Sessions has broad cross-party support. If passed, the proposal will prevent US courts from recognising foreign libel rulings that are inconsistent with the First Amendment.

The Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Bill will now go before the House of Representatives.

Update: Passed by the House of Representatives

29th July 2010. Based on article from todayonline.com

The United States House of Representatives passed a Bill aimed at shielding US journalists, authors and publishers from libel tourists who file suit in countries where they expect to get the most favourable ruling.

Lawmakers approved the measure, which now goes to President Barack Obama to sign into law.

The bill had such widespread support from Democrats and Republicans that it was passed on a voice vote in Congress.

Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

The legislation will prevent US federal courts from recognising or enforcing a foreign judgment for defamation that is inconsistent with the first amendment and will bar foreign parties from targeting the American assets of an American author, journalist, or publisher as part of any damages.

Campaigners for more liberal libel law in Britain said they hoped the new law would influence the Government as it prepares a draft reform bill for publication in January.

Padraig Reidy, a spokesman for the Index on Censorship, said: It's a vindication of our argument that English libel laws in their current state do not encourage or protect free expression. The fact that Britain's best ally feels the need to protect itself from the English libel courts demonstrates the need for reform.

Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Congressman who drafted the bill, said it was vital that Americans' rights are never undermined by foreign judgments.

MoreHorror.com sources attending the San Diego Comic-Con have a report about the upcoming Adam Green release of Hatchet II.

Dark Sky Films are stating that they plan to have the film released in theaters entirely in its UNRATED format. Green told the audience at the convention that the MPAA has (yet again) asked that entire scenes be removed from the movie because they are too violent!

It seems however that won't be a factor anymore since an unnamed theater chain has been confirmed to allow the entire version to run in theaters this coming October.

Update: AMC

27th August 2010. Based on article from cinematical.com

AMC Theaters will be showing the unrated cut of the film as part of its AMC Independent program. This means the uncut version of Hatchet II will be shown theatrically in the top 20 markets in the United States.

Adult DVD Empire will plead guilty to an obscenity charge filed against the company by federal prosecutors.

Attorney Lawrence Walters told XBIZ that this appears to be a pre-arranged, pre-packaged deal where all the parties involved came to an agreement in advance.

Walters says the deal was structured in a way where the corporation was charged, not an individual, so no one will be doing time in jail.

As part of the deal, Adult DVD Empire will be on a three-year probation and pay a $75,000 fine.

Federal prosecutors filed the charges July 22 charging that the company, which operates AdultDVDEmpire.com, mailed four DVDs containing obscene material to an Erie post office box in May 2007.

Walters says the charges seems to have been initiated by Mary Beth Buchanan, the former U.S. District Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, who was active in obscenity prosecutions

The four DVDs are identified as A Bounty of Pain, Shattering Krystal both from Dan Hawke Productions, Extreme Tit Torture 18 from Galaxy Productions and Pussy Torture 8 also from Galaxy and directed by Rick Savage.

Saw 3D, the upcoming 7th movie in the Saw franchise, will be the last one according to producers who say, It's time to stop. We have told the story we wanted to tell, and this is going to be a great farewell.

The 3D movie will have 11 booby traps, almost double compared to the previous films, and it was submitted 6 times to the MPAA before bringing it down from an NC-17 to an R rating!

Producer Mark Burg reveals: I'm surprised we got it. It's more violent than any of them. But it's in 3-D, it answers all the questions, it comes full circle. We have the good on this one.

As for critics of the franchise, star Tobin Bell says: It's a free country. If people don't want to look at certain things, they shouldn't go. The people who don't go to films were more upset than the horror fans. You can say what you want about it, but Saw fans have loved and supported it every year. We must have been doing something right.

The House of Representatives has passed a bill that, if enacted, will prohibit the sale of crush videos and other filmed acts of animal cruelty including burning, suffocating, drowning and impaling live animals. The bill, sponsored by Representative Elton Gallegly, passed by a margin of 416 to 3. It now goes to the Senate, which is expected to pass it.

In April, the Supreme Court overturned a Virginia man's conviction for selling videos that depicted dogfighting on free-speech grounds. Chief Justice John Roberts said the existing law that criminalized the sale of such videos was too broad and could be used to prosecute sellers of hunting videos.

Gallegly responded by crafting a narrowly written law designed specifically to prohibit the sale or distribution of obscene visual depictions of animal cruelty. He became involved in the issue in 1999, when a local district attorney had difficulty prosecuting a Thousand Oaks man for selling a video depicting animal cruelty over the Internet.

Blogetery.com, a little-known WordPress platform used by more than 70,000 blogs, was shut down by its Web hosting company more than a week ago and nobody seems willing to say why or who is responsible.

BurstNet, the Web-hosting company, informed Blogetery's operator that service was terminated at the request of some law enforcement agency but wouldn't say which one. As for the reason, BurstNet hasn't made that clear either. In an e-mail to Blogetery's operator, BurstNet managers did say that they had little choice but to terminate service.

Please note that this was not a typical case in which suspension and notification would be the norm, BurstNet wrote to Blogetery's operator. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server.

Initially commentators suspected that perhaps file sharing issues were behind the take down but this was denied.  In an interview, a BurstNet spokesman declined to identify the law enforcement agency that ordered Blogetery shut down or provide the reason but did say that it had nothing to do with copyright violations.

BurstNet hinted at something more serious in a forum article from webhostingtalk.com.

In repose to a refund request and a dump of Blogetery data, BurstNet wrote: [This] should be the least of his concerns. Simply put: We cannot give him his data nor can we provide any other details. By stating this, most would recognize that something serious is afoot.

Update: Inspire

20th July 2010. Based on article from news.cnet.com

More details are surfacing about why Blogetery.com, a blogging platform that claimed to service more than 70,000 blogs, was mysteriously booted from the Internet by its Web-hosting company.

The site was shut down after FBI agents informed executives of Burst.net, Blogetery's Web host, late on July 9 that links to al-Qaeda materials were found on Blogetery's servers, Joe Marr, chief technology officer for Burst.net, told CNET. Sources close to the investigation say that included in those materials were the names of American citizens targeted for assassination by al-Qaeda. Messages from Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the terrorist organization, as well as bomb-making tips, were also allegedly found on the server.

A source with knowledge of the investigation said that the material allegedly found on Blogetery's server is connected to an online magazine called Inspire, which debuted recently. Numerous news outlets reported over the past weekend that Inspire is designed to help recruit new members to al-Qaeda. According to Fox News, the title of one article was Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.

Citing intelligence sources, Fox reported that Khan is Web savvy and his magazine represents al-Qaeda's most ambitious terrorist recruitment tool to date.

A seemingly small but very significant adjustment to Massachusetts' longstanding law against providing matter harmful to minors to anyone under the age of 18 has been challenged in federal court by a group of plaintiffs that includes the state chapter of the ACLU, the Association of American Booksellers, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, sex therapist Marty Klein and others.

The law, which went into effect Monday, changes the definition of matter, which used to include only handwritten or printed material, visual representation, live performance or sound recording including but not limited to, books, magazines, motion picture films, pamphlets, phonographic records, pictures, photographs, figures, statues, plays, dances.

The definition now includes any electronic communication including, but not limited to, electronic mail, instant messages, text messages, and any other communication created by means of use of the Internet or wireless network, whether by computer, telephone, or any other device or by any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photo-electronic or photo-optical system.

In other words, a law that once targeted the physical dissemination of harmful matter to minors has been extended to include virtually all of cyberspace, including communication done using email or instant messaging programs. According to the complaint, its breadth is nothing less than staggering.

Because Internet speakers have no means to restrict minors in Massachusetts from accessing their communications, says the complaint, the Act effectively requires almost all discourse on the Internet—whether among citizens of Massachusetts or among users anywhere in the world—to be at a level suitable for young children. The Act therefore bans an entire category of constitutionally protected speech between and among adults on the Internet.

Update: Challenged

18th July 2010. Based on article from firstamendmentcenter.org

A coalition of booksellers and Internet content providers on July 13 filed a federal lawsuit challenging an expansion of Massachusetts' obscenity law to include electronic communications that may be harmful to minors.

The Supreme Judicial Court, ruling in a case in February, found that the state's obscenity law didn't apply to instant messages. The new law, passed quickly by the state Legislature after the ruling, added instant messages, text messages, e-mail and other electronic communications to the old law.

The changes amount to a broad censorship law that imposes severe content-based restrictions on the dissemination of constitutionally protected speech, the lawsuit argues. The plaintiffs include the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the Association of American Publishers, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and other groups. They argue that the expanded law effectively bans from the Internet anything that may be considered harmful to minors, including material adults have a First Amendment right to view, including information about contraception, pregnancy, sexual health, literature and art.

For most communications over the Internet, it is not possible for a person sending or posting the communication to ensure that the communication will not be read or seen by a minor, the lawsuit states.

The judge has ruled the John Stagliano case is over.

US District Judge Richard Leon, ruling that the government didn't meet the burden of evidence on any of the eight charges, admonished prosecutors over their efforts.

I trust that the government will learn a lesson when going forward, Leon said in his ruling. The myriad of novel legal issues that have bubbled up in this case will continue to pop up around the country.

Leon found that the government had not shown any evidence that either of the two corporate entities effectively had any direct ties to the charges, or that the defendant himself had any direct links to the videos he was charged with.

While there was circumstantial evidence, Leon ruled that it was insufficient for a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The courtroom erupted into applause after the judge read his ruling and dismissed the jury.

Outside the courtroom Stagliano, perhaps joking, said he was disappointed. [The government] didn't put up much of a fight. They were sloppy and not passionate and doing the prosecution for the wrong reasons, Stagliano told XBIZ.

A Stagliano attorney, Louis Sirkin, told XBIZ that it proves if you've got the guts to fight, wonderful things can happen. He compared Stagliano to Lenny Bruce and others who protect the 1st Amendment.

A New York court has struck down the TV censor's  rules banning fleeting expletives on TV.

According to the Associated Press, the court has overturned a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy, saying that the agency's guidelines for fleeting expletives and other indecencies in broadcast violate the First Amendment.

The policy went into effect in 2004, at a time when indecency in broadcast was a hot issue, right after Janet Jackson's notorious wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl.

Now, the three-judge panel in New York has decided to overturn the policy because they believe the FCC's policy is unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here.

The appeals court added that the chilling effect would lead to mass censorship of potentially valuable material, because broadcasters have no way of knowing what the FCC will find offensive.

The US House of Representative passed a supplemental appropriations bill (HR 4899). It contains an easy-to-miss provision that some legislators have been trying to get passed into law for several months that would prohibit funds to any recipient that doesn't block porn on its computer network.

According to an OpenCongress summary of the legislation, which passed by a vote of 239-182, This bill would provide billions to support US troops in Iraq, help teachers and police get through the recession, help Vietnam war veterans etc.

But tucked into the second-to-last page of the bill is the short provision—Sec. 4601(a)—that outlines the pornography restriction, which reads, None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to maintain or establish a computer network unless such network blocks the viewing, downloading, and exchanging of pornography.

Seemingly straightforward, the wording of the anti-porn provision has some people concerned that its reach may extend far beyond actual government-owned computer networks to include those belonging to any contractor or subcontractor who receives even a dollar from the government for any work required under this bill.

Pat Trueman, a former Justice Department saying he had yet to examine the exact language, but that if it could be legally problematic if it says that in order to get a government contract, a business must filter out all porn for all employees—even those not on a government contract.

A law that threatens to classify adult video games as X-rated entertainment in the US has been slammed by bosses of major games publishers.

The US Supreme Court agreed in April to review a motion prohibiting the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

The law would allow individual states to impose sales restrictions on violent games - effectively putting them into the same category as pornography, and restricting their sale to adult citizens.

The Supreme Court is reviewing a federal court's decision to throw out California's ban - which was originally signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It's very, very surprising that the Supreme Court is hearing the case, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar parent Take Two told CNBC: I'm worried about it, and I think everybody in our business should be really worried about it.

Graham Hopper, EVP and general manager of Disney Interactive added: It's not about having a dramatic impact on our bottom line. It's going to make our retailing abilities a nightmare.

Other games industry figures spoke of their fear that other states would push through their own version of the bill - meaning developers would have to create multiple version of games to suit each territory's individual criteria: One of America's great exports is entertainment, commented John Riccitiello, CEO of EA. The implication of Schwarzenegger v. ESA (the case before the Court) is we could end up with state level bureaucracies that define what's marketable in 50 different jurisdictions across the U.S.

Sony's Jack Tretton was more positive about the Supreme Court's decision to hear the case. We believe as an industry that the primary reason the Supreme Court is hearing it is despite the fact that this law has been struck down, [the issue] has come up 12 times [previously]. I think the Supreme Court is looking at it to potentially see if there's something to it or to put an end to it once and for all.

The court will hear arguments in this case in the autumn.

Art or porn?

That question came up last week for strollers along downtown Bemidji's Sculpture Walk, which this year features nine painted fiberglass beavers, including one with -- to some eyes -- a suggestive painting on its belly.

After about 20 callers complained to City Hall that artist Deborah Davis' painting appeared to be of female genitalia, City Manager John Chattin ordered Davis' sculpture removed from the Sculpture Walk, officials in the northern Minnesota city said.

Al Belleveau, president of the Bemidji Sculpture Walk, said that at Chattin's request, he moved the sculpture to his yard until the City Council decides what to do with it.

That prompted a protest during Sunday's July 4th parade. A crowd of people gathered near where Davis' beaver sculpture had stood, some carrying signs that read Censored, Davis said. In addition, some of the other beaver artists veiled their own works in solidarity with Davis.

Davis, of Blackduck, Minn., called her work Gaea, which she said can mean Mother Earth or God is gracious. The beaver has female figures painted on its sides and a tree on its back. Its belly features a painting in which some see praying hands and some see woman's genitalia.

My intent was to paint Mother Nature, Mother Earth, Davis said. I didn't understand that some people saw genitalia. ... I understand people see different things in art, and they need to be free to do that. ... My intent was to paint a praying woman.

Update: The Beaver's Back

7th July 2010. Based on article from blogs.citypages.com

Bemidji City Council just voted unanimously to return a controversial beaver to its rightful place on the Bemidji Sculpture Walk.

Painted by artist Deborah Davis, Gaea is a celebration of womanhood and one of nine four-foot-tall ceramic beaver sculptures painted by local artists.

But when 20 people called to complain about what they viewed as a vagina on the beaver's belly, City Manager John Chattin took action and censored her beaver from public view.

Davis wasn't going to take that lying down. She organized a Facebook campaign that attracted local and national press attention.

As the beaver went viral, City Council was forced to call a special session to address the controversy.

Gaea supporters came out in droves, speaking eloquently about the artistic merits of the beaver. And as of tonight, the beaver is heading back to the streets.

The jury selection process has begun in the highly-anticipated John Stagliano obscenity trial.

Opening statements will more than likely begin at the end of the week.

Stagliano and his companies, Evil Angel Productions Inc. and John Stagliano Inc, are charged with seven counts for illegal possession, distribution and sale of two videos sent through the mail, Milk Nymphos and Storm Squirters 2 'Target Practice'.

Stagliano faces a maximum of 32 years in jail and $7 million in fines if convicted on all counts. The trial is expected to last two weeks.

A US federal court has struck down a Pennsylvania statute that forbids business names containing:

• Words that constitute blasphemy
• profane cursing or swearing
• words that profane the Lord's name.

The case arose after George Kalman was refused permission by state regulators to register his film company under the name I Choose Hell Productions LLC.

Kalman says he chose the name because he believes it expresses his personal philosophy that it is better to struggle through difficult times in life than to commit suicide, even if life is hell.

The US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found that the statute violated the First Amendment prohibition on establishment of religion, and promoted only Christian religious views. Words used by the Pennsylvania Corporations Bureau to flag proposed names for closer scrutiny included terms such as Christ and Jesus but not those related to other religions, such as Allah or Mohammed.

Additionally the court held that the statute violated Kalman's right to free speech by treating speech differently on the basis on the viewpoint expressed, as business names perceived as pro-religion were permitted.

The court also ruled that the statute used to turn down his company's name violated Kalman's free speech rights by allowing anonymous government officials to refuse business names that offend them.

The court struck down the statute as unconstitutional.

This is either a big surprise or a brilliant marketing tactic. Variety says that movie theater chain Cinemark has pulled the Paranormal Activity 2 trailer from several theaters in Texas after receiving numerous complaints from moviegoers that the trailer was too frightening.

Paranormal Activity is obviously marketed entirely on scares and hearing that a trailer was so frightening that it had to be pulled is a great accidental way of building some extra word-of-mouth buzz for this sequel to Oren Peli's low budget horror flick.

Cinemark is already prepared to pull the trailer from more theaters if they keep receiving more complaints!

A Massachusetts city councilor's request to publicize the names of people caught looking at pornography on library computers has been nixxed by the city's lawyer.

James Timmins, the lawyer in charge of reviewing the request for the Quincy City Council, intends to advise Ann McLaughlin, Qunicy's librarian director, not to release the information. He believes that it would break privacy laws.

There is not a written advisory on it yet, but I will advise her not to release the list, he told The Washington Times.

The request was made by Councilor Daniel Raymondi, who wants to get ahead of the growing problem of people who do not adhere to the appropriate-use policy established by the city library. The city council sent a resolution last week to Mayor Thomas Koch, which calls for the mayor to send the council a list of people who viewed pornography on library computers in the last year. The resolution was approved by the council June 21.on.