New York Law News Vol VIII
-An Ithica, New York man is appealing his charge of convicted murder of New York state trooper Joseph Longobardo. Ralph Phillips allegedly killed Mr. Longobardo and injured two other troopers.
His attorneys are scheduled to appear in a state court in Rochester this morning to appeal his convictions. The 46-year-old Phillips claims he entered his guilty pleas only because he got bad advice from a court-appointed lawyer.
-Anger is rising in New York City over affordable housing and the laws surrounding it. Many advocates for affordable housing believe the laws that deal with housing issues in New York are not properly followed or implemented.
The group outside the DHCE [Department of Housing and Community Renewal] on Tuesday wants a review of a law that allows landlords to raise rent after basic repairs and renovations, as they say it is being abused. They also take issue with what they describe as increasing harassment from their landlords in an effort to get them out of rent-stabilized apartments, and then increase rent.
“A housing law with too many loopholes and too few protections, a steady decline in the number of affordable housing units available citywide, and now a devastated economy, are about to create the most disastrous environment for New York City tenants in recent memory,” said Michelle O’Brien, Campaign Director of the New York Home Coalition.
-Lawrence Lessig, a champion of fair use copyright laws, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times entitled “Copyright and Politics Don’t Mix”. In the piece, Mr. Lessig cites mainstream media outlets who are requesting their copyrighted materials be pulled from political ads in what he deems to be censorship over political campaigns.
Last year, Fox News ordered John McCain to stop using a clip of himself at a Fox News-moderated debate. Last month, Warner Music Group demanded YouTube remove an amateur video attacking Barack Obama that included its music, while NBC asked the Obama campaign to pull an ad that included some NBC News video with Tom Brokaw and Keith Olbermann. No doubt, these corporations are simply trying to avoid controversy or embarrassment, but by claiming infringement, they are effectively censoring political speech.
Senator McCain has taken a lead in responding to this copyright extremism. In a letter addressed to YouTube last week, the McCain campaign rightly criticized the Web site’s decision to remove work that is “clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine” of copyright law and called upon YouTube to be more protective of political speech by conducting a more extensive review of material before it gets taken down.
