The Onion recently filed a headline-grabbing amicus brief intended to defend the rights of Ohio amateur satirist Anthony Novak. Novak created the “City of Parma Police Department” Facebook account, admittedly to exercise his “fundamental American right” of “[m]ocking our government officials.” His posts to the account included mock advertisements for a “Pedophile Reform event” and a program intended to starve the homeless to encourage them to leave the area. Soon after, the police department obtained a search warrant, seized his phone and laptop, and arrested Novak for disrupting police functions.
Free Speech
When is Making a Movie Not an Act of Free Speech?
By James Kachmar on
I admit that the title of this article may be a bit deceiving. Making films, like any other production of art, is almost always an act of free speech. However, the Ninth Circuit was recently faced with a dilemma of determining this issue in connection with an anti-SLAPP motion brought against a screen writer who…