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Anne Bubnic

YouTube lawsuit tests copyright law - 0 views

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    Educators are closely watching a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit challenging YouTube's ability to keep copyrighted material off its popular video-sharing web site-a lawsuit that could have important implications for the future of Web 2.0 applications, observers say.
Anne Bubnic

Bullying lawsuit pending; Jeaga Middle students 'out of control - 4 views

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    7th grade bullying incident caught on camera and posted on YouTube. Parents are filing a lawsuit against the Palm Beach County School District claiming the school has done nothing to stop such incidents or to create a safe environment for students.
Anne Bubnic

Court sides with MySpace in suit over sex assault - 0 views

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    The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit that a Texas girl's family filed against MySpace and its parent company, News Corp. The family said MySpace didn't protect young users from sexual predators.The court ruled that the Communications Decency Act of 1996 "bars such lawsuits against Web-based services like MySpace."
Anne Bubnic

Teachers strike back at students' online pranks - 0 views

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    Students are increasingly facing lawsuits and expulsions for targeting their teachers online.Tech-savvy teenagers are increasingly paying a heavy price - including criminal arrest - for parodying their teachers on the Internet.\n\nTired of fat jokes and false accusations of teacher-lounge partying or worse, teachers and principals are fighting back against digital ridicule and slander by their students - often with civil lawsuits and long-term suspensions or permanent expulsions.\n\nA National School Boards Association (NSBA) study says that as many as one-third of American teens regularly post inappropriate language or manipulated images on the Web. Most online pranks deride other students. But a NSBA November 2006 survey reported 26 percent of teachers and principals being targeted.\n\n
Anne Bubnic

Federal Law Mandates E-Mail Archiving - 0 views

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    The 2006 amendment to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that public entities, including school districts, be able to produce electronically stored information from staff members, such as e-mail and other digital communications, during the " discovery process" in lawsuits.
Anne Bubnic

Email Archiving - 0 views

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    Public schools and local governments may have more stringent requirements than most businesses for email archiving and electronic discovery. Yet, with their limited budgets, schools and local governments are often the least equipped to respond.The newly revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure define how email must be handled in federal court cases. Businesses tend to think that the FRCP focus is on interstate lawsuits. Schools and governments, however, also need to be concerned with emails relating to federally funded activities or any activity governed by federal legislation.In addition, schools and local governments have the burden of responding to (1) requests under open meeting and Freedom of Information Act laws, (2) offensive emails or those with sexual content involving students, and (3) emailed threats.
Anne Bubnic

When tweets can make you a jailbird - 0 views

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    Law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, even going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that surfaced in a lawsuit.
Anne Bubnic

ACLU demands schools allow access to gay Websites - 0 views

  • The American Civil Liberties Union wants Tennessee districts to stop blocking non-sexual Web sites that advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals. Those include:
  • Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, www.pflag.org• The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, www.glsen.org• Human Rights Campaign, www.hrc.org• Marriage Equality USA, www.marriageequality.org• Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, http://rcfm.dbdes.com/myshare.php • The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, www.glaad.org• Dignity USA (an organization for LGBT Catholics), www.dignityusa.org
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    Students and parents are demanding Metro Nashville's public schools stop blocking access to Web sites about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. They complained to the American Civil Liberties Union, which on Wednesday gave Metro and Knox County schools an April 29 deadline to announce plans to open access to the non-sexual sites. A letter to the districts threatened lawsuits if they don't comply.
Anne Bubnic

Student Sues her Coach for violating her privacy rights on Facebook. - 0 views

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    A former high school cheerleader is suing her former coach and the school district for $100 million after the coach allegedly read personal e-mails, WAPT-TV reported. The student filed the federal lawsuit after she said her coach got into her Facebook account and read the messages. One of the e-mails was between the student and another cheerleader and had profanity.
Anne Bubnic

Is Facebook Your "Permanent Record?" - 0 views

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    When Dawn and Bart Beye's 15-year-old daughter began showing signs of an eating disorder, they immediately took action. The Beyes enrolled the girl in a treatment program they thought was covered by insurance. Three weeks later, their insurance provider, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, informed the couple they would no longer pay for the child's treatment. Horizon claimed the disorder is not biologically-based, but emotionally-based, and therefore, not their responsibility to cover. The Beyes sued. And in what could have been a dangerous precedent-setting lawsuit, Horizon subpoenaed the daughter's online writings from MySpace and Facebook to prove it.
Anne Bubnic

Stanford Copyright & Fair Use - Fair Use - 0 views

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    This web site explains the various rules behind the fair use principle. To help you get a feel for which uses courts consider to be fair uses and which ones they don't, they provide several examples of fair use lawsuits at the end of this chapter.
Anne Bubnic

Curbing Cyberbullying in School and on the Web - 0 views

  • Many of the most egregious acts of cyberbullying do not take place during school hours or on school networks, a situation that presents a dilemma for public school administrators: If they punish a student for off-campus behavior, they could get hit with a freedom of speech suit.  If they do nothing, students may continue to suffer and school officials theoretically could get hit with failure to act litigation. For school administrators, it appears to be an unfortunate “catch-22.” For lawyers, it’s a “perfect storm,” pitting freedom of speech advocates against the victims of cyberbullying and schools that try to intervene. There are no easy answers in this arena, few laws, and no well-established precedents that specifically deal with cyberbullying.
  • “School administrators can intervene in cyberbullying incidents, even if the incidents do not take place on school grounds, if they can demonstrate that the electronic speech resulted in a substantial disruption to the educational environment.”
  • These cases illustrate not only a lack of precedent on cyberbullying cases, but also a dilemma for school administrators on how to handle cyberbullying.  “There are few laws that address how to handle cyberbullying, and many schools don’t have an internal policy to deal with cyberbullying that takes place off-campus,” offers Deutchman.  “It may take an unfortunate and tragic event on school property to get more schools to consider tackling electronic behavior that originates off campus.  It’s only a matter of time before a cyberbully, or the victim of cyberbullying, uses deadly force during school hours.”
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  • So, what should schools do in the meantime?  First, school officials should establish a consistent internal policy (much like a crisis plan) and a team (minimally made up of the principal, school counselor, and technology director) to deal with cyber-misconduct. This team should fully document disruptive incidents and the degree to which the learning environment is affected. The principal should invite the cyberbully’s parents to review the offending material before considering disciplinary action. Most parents at this point will do the right thing.
  • Second, schools should educate children, starting in elementary school, about the importance of cyber-safety and the consequences of cyberbullying, especially on the school’s own network. These rules should be clearly posted in the computer labs and written in age-appropriate language. The rules should be sent home to parents each year—and they should be posted prominently on the school’s website.
  • Third, teachers should continue incorporating in their curriculum projects that utilize the web and other powerful new technologies. This probably won’t help schools avoid lawsuits; it’s just good pedagogy. It’s not surprising that schools that keep up with the latest technology and software—and employ teachers who care about the quality of online communication—report lower incidents of cyber-misconduct.
  • In addition, schools should update their codes of conduct to include rules that can legally govern off-campus electronic communication that significantly disrupts the learning environment. They should also assign enough resources and administrative talent to deal with students who engage in cyber-misconduct. One very big caveat: Disciplining a student for off-campus electronic speech should be done only as a last resort, and certainly not before seeking legal counsel.
  • Finally, schools should realize that not all cyberbullies need to be disciplined. Schools should act reasonably, responsibly, and consistently—so as to avoid the very bullying behavior they are trying to curb. Until the courts provide clear standards in the area of off-campus electronic speech for young people, these recommendations will go a long way in making schools a safer learning environment for everyone.
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    Most school administrators have more than one story to tell about cyberbullying. They report that victims of cyberbullying experience low self-esteem, peer isolation, anxiety, and a drop in their grades. They note that victims may miss class or other school-related activities. Principals also point to recent high-profile cases where cyberbullying, left unchecked, led to suicide. In response, some schools have created new policies and curbed free speech on the school's computer network and on all electronic devices used during school hours. This article offers practical advice for actions schools can take to curb bullying, ranging from policy development to education.
Anne Bubnic

Bebo party story is fake--lawsuit is not - 0 views

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    Don't believe everything you read on Bebo. That's the message an angry mother is sending by suing six U.K. newspapers that lifted a story off social-networking site Bebo about her daughter's supposed wild party.
Vicki Davis

Search and Seizure of Cell Phones: Can You Hear Me Now? - 0 views

  • May school officials lawfully “search” the confiscated cell phone to look at stored text messages, photographs, videos, and logs of incoming and outgoing calls? Clearly, the circumstances of the search must satisfy the T.L.O. standard. Not as clear, however, is whether such a search violates federal or Michigan laws regarding stored electronic communications.
  • [A] search of a student by a teacher or other school officials will be ‘justified at its inception’ when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school. Such a search will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.”
  • In Klump v Nazareth Area Sch Dist, 425 F Supp 2d 622 (ED Pa, 2006), a federal district court denied the school’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a student whose cell phone was searched.
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  • compensatory and punitive damages for the alleged unconstitutional search, violation of the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act, invasion of privacy, and defamation.
  • The court ruled that the student had stated a claim for the alleged violation of his right to be free from an unreasonable search.
  • here was no basis for them to search the text and voice mail messages stored on the phone.
  • unlawful access to the stored voice mail and text message communications.
  • (2) A person shall not willfully and maliciously read or copy any message from any telegraph, telephone line, wire, cable, computer network, computer program, or computer system, or telephone or other electronic medium of communication that the person accessed without authorization. (3) A person shall not willfully and maliciously make unauthorized use of any electronic medium of communication, including the internet or a computer, computer program, computer system, or computer network, or telephone.
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    Legal Implications for Searching Student Cell Phones. Although this article is written against Michigan law, it does help clarify some of the concepts for what is permissable. Note that searching a student's cell phone or wireless device without parent permission may violate state wiretapping laws.
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    Confiscating and looking at information on cell phones by school officials is still not clear. This is a very interesting case study for those working with digital citizenship issues at their school.
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    Fascinating article explaining Michigan take on searching and confiscating cell phones.
Judy Echeandia

Lawsuits Test Free Speech in Internet Era - 0 views

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    A federal appeals court in Philadelphia must decide whether a Pennsylvania middle school can suspend a student who, at home on her own time, created a lewd MySpace page aimed at her principal.
Anne Bubnic

Abusive MySpace page draws principal's lawsuit - 0 views

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    Colony High School principal Cyd Duffin doesn't do MySpace. So other people had to tell Duffin last October that a fake MySpace page appeared in her name -- a page depicting the principal as a drug-using racist with a sexually transmitted disease who insults disabled students and likes books about pornography, anarchy and the Ku Klux Klan.
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