Importing the First Amendment : Freedom of Expression in American, English and European Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 107769902110187
Author(s):  
Michael K. Park

The resurgence of political activism by student-athletes raises the specter of increased constitutional challenges to public university regulations on student-athlete speech. This article explores the special regulatory environment situating student-athletes and gleans the First Amendment values underpinning cases where student-athletes challenge institutional regulations on their freedom of expression. Analysis of the legal discourse suggests that courts are more likely to apply increased scrutiny to university officials’ attempts to regulate expression on public issues versus speech that address personal or private matters. This article ends with some suggestions for practitioners and scholars to consider when evaluating regulations on student-athlete speech.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 921-940
Author(s):  
Michael D. Murray

ccess to innovative scientific, literary, and artistic content has never been more important to the public than now, in the digital age. Thanks to the digital revolution carried out through such means as super-computational power at super-affordable prices, the Internet, broadband penetration, and contemporary computer science and technology, the global, national, and local public finds itself at the convergence of unprecedented scientific and cultural knowledge and content development, along with unprecedented means to distribute, communicate, and access that knowledge. This Article joins the conversation on the Access-to-Knowledge, Access-to- Medicine, and Access-to-Art movements by asserting that the copyright restrictions affecting knowledge, innovation, and original thought implicate copyright’s originality and idea-expression doctrines first and fair use doctrine second. The parallel conversation in copyright law that focuses on the proper definition of the contours of copyright as described in the U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent constitutional law cases on copyright—Feist, Eldred, Golan, and Kirtsaeng—interprets the originality and idea-expression doctrines as being necessary for the proper balance between copyright protection and First Amendment freedom of expression. This Article seeks to join together the two conversations by focusing attention on the right to access published works under both copyright and First Amendment law. Access to works is part and parcel of the copyright contours debate. It is a “first principles” question to be answered before the question of manipulation, appropriation, or fair use is contemplated. The original intent of the Copyright Clause and its need to accommodate the First Amendment freedom of expression support the construction of the contours of copyright to include a right to access knowledge and information. Therefore, the originality and idea-expression doctrines should be reconstructed to recognize that the right to deny access to published works is extremely limited if not non-existent within the properly constructed contours of copyright.


1986 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 35-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Coulson

The economics of the newspaper industry has concentrated in the hands of a few monopolists and chain owners the power to inform and to influence public opinion. The threat to freedom of expression posed by newspaper chain ownership and monopoly is examined with the possible application of antitrust law to foster open and competitive newspaper markets. Recognizing newspaper concentration more adversely affects ideas than the economic marketplace, weight is given to social and political factors in determining anticompetitive market constraints. Extensive newspaper consolidation, it is argued, inhibits new entry and decreases editorial independence and diversity.


1977 ◽  
Vol 87 (347) ◽  
pp. 580
Author(s):  
Jack Wiseman ◽  
B. M. Owen

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Christine Schultz-Richert

In her work, Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock, author Amy Werbel explores the unintended consequences of the forty-year vice suppression campaign of America’s first professional censor, Anthony Comstock. Equal parts a history of lust in art and a legal history of the cultural importance of the First Amendment, this work offers an inspiring tale of artist-, activist-, and attorney-led revolts against censorship, and underlines how the pursuit of moral and sexual control through prosecution is futile in the face of interminable cultural and technological change. Werbel points to the proliferation of lust and freedom of expression as evidence of Comstock’s ultimate failure to “purify” the nation of those materials that he deemed obscene. However, the most salient, underlying current of the story of Comstock is not perhaps the question of the efficacy of his mission, but instead the ways in which such efforts disproportionately silence the most vulnerable.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
László Vári

Az online kommunikációs tér kínálta lehetőségekkel, illetve annak egyre terjedő használatával felértékelődött a vélemény és a kifejezés szabadságának jelentősége, a mindennapok szóhasználatával pedig a szólás- és sajtószabadság szerepe. Nemcsak azért, mert a mobil világ kiváló, eddig nem ismert lehetőségeket hordoz magában a szabadságjog gyakorlásához, érvényesüléséhez, hanem mert a digitális korban újabb, eddig ismeretlen vagy kevésbé jelentős problémák is felerősödnek. A félrevezető és álhírek, a profilfelfüggesztés, a kommenttörlés, a rágalmazás, és a gyűlöletbeszéd még sokáig lehetne sorolni azokat a problémákat, melyek egytől egyig a kifejezés szabadságának jogszerűtlen gyakorlatára vezethetők vissza. Mindezek nemcsak egyéni, de társadalmi szinten is komoly veszélyt jelentenek, így befolyásolva a demokratikus társadalmakat és azok fejlődését. Éppen ezért válik jelentőssé az a kérdés, hogy hogyan lehet a szólásszabadság sérelmére visszavezethető problémákat kiküszöbölni, és az említett kihívásokra megoldást találni. A következő oldalakon a nemzetközi és európai jogból, azok magyarázataiból és az európai joggyakorlatból kiolvasható válaszokat gyűjtjük össze, hogy rávilágítsunk a jogsértések okaira, és európai megoldásokat keressünk azok orvoslására. --- Liberty with limitations, a European guide to the rightful exercise of the freedom of expression In the digital age, in line with the opportunities of cyberspace and the increasing use of mobile communication the importance of freedom of expression, the so-called free speech and freedom of the press have become more salient. Not only because they carry new opportunities for the practice and the prevalence of freedom, but because new challenges emerge alongside new opportunities. Misleading and fake news, profile suspensions, deleted comments, defamation, hate speech and many other problems, can all stem from the violation of the freedom of opinion and expression. These violations of freedom carry dangers both at an individual and sociatal level, thus influencing the everyday life of democratic societies and their development. Therefore, the question becomes crucial: how can we fix these problems and provide the best solution to these challenges. In the following we will explore international and European law, their explanations and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in order to find European explanations behind the reasons for violations, as well as legal solutions for exercising freedom of expression. Keywords: freedom of expression, international and regional freedom of expression law, European case-law, 3rd party liability, public watchdogs, misleading and fake news, defamation, hate speech, copyright


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