Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Published Article

Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by njharman on Sunday July 15, 2018 @11:56PM (#17538660)

Judges and elected officials routinely regulate free speech. Every court sealed record, every copyright performance enforcement, every liable/slander ruling, every pornograpy lewd speech law/FCC regulation, hate crime and bullying laws that limit what anyone can say, tons of national security arms export that restrict wide gamut of things like CPUs and maths algorithms.

Some of those I agree with. Some I don't. Point is Supreme Court has rightly ruled Free Speech is not a absolute right. It does not trump all other rights. Nor all the duties/responsibilities we put onto governments.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by FireBeyond on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:19AM (#17538747)

> every copyright performance enforcement

Apropos of anything else, if I go somewhere and broadcast Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, or whatever, that is in no way my speech, and regulating the ability to do so without commission or royalty in no way restricts my ability to speak.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by SamReidHughes on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:44AM (#17538829)

It is if you make a derived work.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by FireBeyond on Monday July 16, 2018 @01:47AM (#17539033)

Show me all the court cases smacking down genuine derivative works or parodies. It does happen, but fairly rarely, and there's usually "more to it".

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by jkaplowitz on Monday July 16, 2018 @02:37AM (#17539211)

Deriving from a copyrighted work without permission is infringement unless it falls into some exception like fair use. As you note, parodies often qualify for that exception, but that's not the general rule.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by wool_gather on Monday July 16, 2018 @08:48AM (#17540859)

Absolutely true. Parent may just not understand all the details. One thing that can be slightly confusing w/r/t copyright and recorded music is that the there's a rule that automatically grants a license to produce a new recording of a piece, without the original author or the copyright holder even being consulted. This is called a "mechanical license"; you can perform your own version of any musical work as long as you pay the fee and royalties for it.

That said, I believe there are still provisions for something like "moral rights" where the original author could sue to block publication.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by jkaplowitz on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:45PM (#17542701)

The US doesn't have a general concept of moral rights, though many countries do. Is there some moral right specifically applicable to those compulsory musical licenses?

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by wool_gather on Monday July 16, 2018 @01:37PM (#17543162)

You're right -- I don't remember the right term for this case, which is why I put it in quotes. I just know that you can get the license automatically, and do the recording, but that the original artist has some means to try to block you releasing the recording.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by jkaplowitz on Monday July 16, 2018 @02:37PM (#17543771)

Yeah, it's pretty confusing. I'm pretty sure the rules for performing covers are different from the rules for releasing recordings of covers, too. I think performance rights are more permissive.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by SamReidHughes on Monday July 16, 2018 @02:12AM (#17539120)

Dude, the treatment of derivative works is textbook copyright law.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by JumpCrisscross on Monday July 16, 2018 @02:50AM (#17539260)

Not to mention anti-fraud statutes.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by wcunning on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:43AM (#17538828)

Can you provide citations to some of the hate crime and bullying laws you mention? I want to know what I should be writing my elected officials about because free speech is so very very close to an absolute, and I like it that way. The few restrictions I'm aware of in currently valid (not overturned) Supreme Court precedent are exceedingly tiny.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by pietroglyph on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:56AM (#17538862)

Removal from office is the last thing that should happen in this situation. The judge made a questionable decision, which will be appealed, but the judge should not be fired (that is an action reserved for actual misconduct). If we do the latter to judges with whom we do not agree, we jeopardize the independence of our judiciary.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by maxpupmax on Monday July 16, 2018 @01:11AM (#17538906)

Disagree with the overall sentiment. If judges make decisions which don't represent the mandate of their constituents, they can/should be removed. See the Brock Turner judge in the SF bay area. Glad he's gone!

That said, you may be right about this particular situation.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by pjc50 on Monday July 16, 2018 @04:43AM (#17539685)

> If judges make decisions which don't represent the mandate of their constituents, they can/should be removed.

This collapses separation of powers, is against the idea that "law" and "politics" are separate things, and paves the way for removing judges who don't support the views of the Party.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by chii on Monday July 16, 2018 @10:14AM (#17541366)

Some judges in the USA is elected (while some are appointed for life). See https://litigation.findlaw.com/legal-system/how-are-judges-s...

But i do believe that judges should be appointed by a panel of existing judges, and once appointed, can only be removed by said panel (and not the gov't).

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by georgek on Monday July 16, 2018 @01:16AM (#17538931)

Just a clarification: federal judges (like the one in this article) are appointed by the President and confirmed by Congress. They are not elected and do not have constituents in the same way elected officials do.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by mnw21cam on Monday July 16, 2018 @10:34AM (#17541544)

A judge is there to interpret the law, even if the outcome isn't what the majority of people would like. Politicians are there to sway with what the majority of people want.

Often, a lower court will be bound to make a particular judgment, because of precedent. It isn't unheard of for a judgment to say "We have to decide this way, but it would be really nice if this was appealed up to someone with the authority to decide the other way".

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by alexandercrohde on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:32AM (#17538793)

I just want to point out that this type of all-or-nothing thinking may be the most effective way to alienate people from your perspective. I'd consider myself a free-speech nut, but comments like this make me want to distance myself from that label.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by latch on Sunday July 15, 2018 @11:55PM (#17538653)

I know this isn't related to hate speech, it was done to protect someone's family, but in much of the world, various forms of speech are regulated (by judges or elected officials).

To me, anyways, there's overwhelming anecdotal proof that having some limits on speech correlates (and more than likely contributes) to a safer and more just society without any virulent side effect. This is not a slippery slope.

I think it's good to be vigilant about these things and scrutinize judges and officials though.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by mr_spothawk on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:29AM (#17538783)

> To me, anyways, there's overwhelming anecdotal proof that having some limits on speech correlates (and more than likely contributes) to a safer and more just society without any virulent side effect.

no serious person would suggest that this is a situation which requires limits on speech. you're using it as a platform for suggesting that it is, which I think is insane.

> This is not a slippery slope.

this is the very definition of a slippery slope.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by Nasrudith on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:15AM (#17538735)

Personally I am highly suspicious of the 'for the subject's family' motivation as it seems very selectively applied and often comes up only when 'their people' are at risk from their own wrongdoing.

I'm of the view that it should be for everybody or nobody and not to discretion because their discretion always leads to selfish behavior that holds the people who most need to be held accountable to be the least so.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by grasshopperpurp on Monday July 16, 2018 @10:32AM (#17541525)

Especially when the DoJ says that fleeing domestic and gang violence are not grounds for asylum, it's ridiculous to consider the lives of a corrupt cop and his family above society, which this decision does.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by Aloha on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:40AM (#17538816)

In politics, there is an adage I like, never give yourself more power than you want your opponent to have.

Free speech is one of those things that fits into this category, regulating speech that makes people uncomfortable does have a very provable slippery slope effect.

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-la...

We've experimented with aggressively limiting free speech before, and it went very very bad, very fast, I'd rather not try the experiment again.

Another point I'd like to make, is that I'd rather know what peoples 'real' views are, so I can either avoid them or help change their mind, pushing objectionable opinion underground, does not stop people from holding those opinions, it just hides them where it cannot been seen, and actioned upon.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AllegedAlec on Monday July 16, 2018 @04:48AM (#17539699)

> regulating speech that makes people uncomfortable does have a very provable slippery slope effect.

Yeah, I can tell you hate speech laws don't work well, since any group with an agenda can push for those laws to be used against the common good, or even injudicious application of it, such as we see in the GB, where a woman has been sentenced to community service for quoting song lyrics, or the moronic laws of my country that make the denial of the Holocaust illegal.

However, I'd argue that from a moral standpoint, these laws are even more reprehensible. Language (and thought) are how we test ideas, and when you start to limit that because they're the wrong kind of language or ideas, you limit not only our capability to discuss ideas, but also our ability to talk about these ideas, but also our ability to test them, and therefore, if it is really such a repugnant idea, find out the arguments for why it is so.

There are other reasons why I believe that hate speech is a toxic idea. For example: hate speech is a term used by the small-minded to shut down anything they don't agree with. Serious discussion on any contentious subject is immediately rendered moot by the new Godwin that is calling something hate speech.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @01:12AM (#17538917)

It’s the slipperiest slope of all. Thousands of people have been arrested for causing offence in the UK after they introduced their absurd laws. Police have recently been threatening to arrest people for mocking them online. In the US we’re very lucky to have the first amendment to protect our speech no matter who deems it hateful or offensive.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by jkaplowitz on Monday July 16, 2018 @02:44AM (#17539233)

There are middle grounds that also work well, like what Canada has.

It's got entrenched constitutional protections for freedom of expression which courts are willing to use to invalidate laws, but the same constitution explicitly allows certain limits on that freedom.

The balance isn't perfect, especially not as applied to most Canadian defamation laws (Quebec is a bit friendlier to defendants here). But it's pretty good and way better than the UK's lack of any restraint on Parliament's surveillance state tendencies.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:25AM (#17539392)

Canada is a terrible example, they have compelled speech in their laws. Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun is a criminal offence in Canada. The right to free speech is intrinsically the right to be offensive, for the very simple reason that any statement at all could be taken as offensive by somebody. As soon as you criminalise being offensive, any speech becomes fair game for government censorship. It is the very definition of a slippery slope.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by ekiru on Monday July 16, 2018 @10:53AM (#17541727)

> Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun is a criminal offence in Canada.

Please cite the text of a law which actually says this or any case where someone has been convicted for this under a law which does not explicitly say it.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by matthewmacleod on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:39AM (#17539445)

I find that definition is typically only used by people who are more interested in “offence” than “freedom of speech”.

We should obviously all have the freedoms to be offensive, because like you say, offence is essentially arbitrary. But we draw limits on that freedom all the time - for safety, libel, or public order reasons, for example. The real argument should be about where that line is drawn, and not those silly straw men about “they are going to arrest me for calling a man a man”

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:49AM (#17539483)

It’s not silly at all, because that is literally a law in Canada.

There are also 0 restrictions on offensiveness in the US. Any restrictions on speech are restrictions on other crimes. You can’t incite violence for example. If your straw man of what free speech means we’re true, then a gang leader could freely sit behind a desk and direct others to commit crime on his behalf all day because all he’s doing is speaking, right?...

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by icebraining on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:09AM (#17539781)

There are also 0 restrictions on offensiveness in the US.

That's not true: see "seven dirty words".

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:21AM (#17539830)

The Supreme Court ruling on that case held that broadcasting content into people’s homes is materially different to public speech.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by icebraining on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:52AM (#17539946)

So if the UK courts rule that posting on Twitter/FB is materially different then it's all fine?

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @06:29AM (#17540142)

If twitter stopped operating on the internet, and started terrestrially broadcasting their content into people’s homes then you might have a point.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by dragonwriter on Monday July 16, 2018 @09:09AM (#17540988)

> It’s not silly at all, because that is literally a law in Canada.

Except it's literally not; that was a deliberate misrepresentation popularized by people like Jordan Peterson. [0]

> There are also 0 restrictions on offensiveness in the US

Incorrect, see literally the entire field of obscenity law.

[0] http://sds.utoronto.ca/blog/bill-c-16-no-its-not-about-crimi...

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by jkaplowitz on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:43PM (#17542677)

If an employer* in NYC or Seattle tolerates one employee persistently and intentionally referring to another employee by the wrong pronoun, it violates their local discrimination laws just as much as in Quebec, with enforceable penalties to boot.

No, it's not criminal in either place, if it's not coupled with more. Another poster replied with a link debunking this myth as applied to Canada.

And yes, laws aimed at preventing a hostile work environment, even speech-based ones, have been held to be constitutional in the US.

For a US federal example, repeatedly targeting someone with racial slurs within a workplace* will also get you into punishable trouble.

*Yes, I know certain employers, like 2-person companies, are excluded from these laws. Doesn't change the general point.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by anticensor on Monday July 16, 2018 @04:29AM (#17539625)

>Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun

Like, calling your superior tu?

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by matthewmacleod on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:35AM (#17539429)

1. No they haven’t

2. There are limitations of free speech in every country, including the US. It’s a matter of where the line is drawn.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:45AM (#17539466)

1. Yes they have.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5715727/Police-threa...

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/201...

2. The restrictions on speech in the US mostly relate to other crimes, like inciting violence. You can’t be arrested in the US for saying something that’s too offensive (like they do in the UK every day).

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by icebraining on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:07AM (#17539775)

Section 127 prohibits "sending by public communication network an offensive / indecent / obscene / menacing message / matter". It's unspecified in that article how many were arrested specifically for offensive messages (as opposed, say, to menacing ones).

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by AmericanChopper on Monday July 16, 2018 @05:16AM (#17539800)

Menacing like... mocking the police? Threatening behaviour is already a crime in the UK. Section 127 ONLY serves to criminalize any behaviour deemed offensive by the state.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by dragonwriter on Monday July 16, 2018 @08:58AM (#17540922)

> You can’t be arrested in the US for saying something that’s too offensive

You clearly are unfamiliar with the entire domain of obscenity law not in the US, which is exactly about defining what is so offensive as to be outside the scope of First Amendment protection.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by Waterluvian on Sunday July 15, 2018 @11:38PM (#17538577)

I was thinking it would turn out to be one of those bizarre elected judges that the US has. But I think federal judges are all appointed through some resemblance of a sensible process, so I'm at a loss as well.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by nickthemagicman on Monday July 16, 2018 @02:18AM (#17539158)

This judge was nominated by G W Bush. Conservatives seem to be staunchly against the press except their version of it.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by pvg on Sunday July 15, 2018 @11:37PM (#17538574)

Regardless of their reasons

It's their actual job.

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by mr_spothawk on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:21AM (#17538756)

> Double wrong

I think you mean "double-plus wrong".

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Re:Judge Orders Los Angeles Times to Delete Part of Publishe... by kabdib on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:26AM (#17538772)

Doubleplusungood is the official term, comrade.

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