U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel granted a preliminary injunction against the online censorship law that went into effect in Massachusetts earlier this year. Massachusetts booksellers, trade associations including the CBLDF, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts filed suit in July to block the law because it imposes severe restrictions on constitutionally protected speech on the Internet, on the grounds that such material might be “harmful to minors.” The Court enjoined the law because it did not require that such material was purposefully sent to a person the sender knew to be a minor.
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CBLDF & Dark Horse Cheer Free Speech Victory in Ninth Circuit!
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Dark Horse Comics applaud a decision issued by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit holding that two Oregon statutes that criminalize distributing sex education and other non-obscene materials to minors are unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment. The State of Oregon argued that the statutes applied only to “hardcore pornography,” but the Ninth Circuit found that they applied to much more, including Kentaro Miura’s manga “Berserk,” Judy Blume’s “Forever,” and Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale.” The plaintiffs did not challenge Oregon’s existing law making it a crime to contact a minor with the intent of having sexual contact. CBLDF and Dark Horse were among the plaintiff group challenging the statutes.
Mike Richardson, publisher of plaintiff Dark Horse comics says, “We were extremely happy to see these statutes overturned. Our Constitution’s First Amendment was intended to keep the hands of the government off the printing presses of America. Creators everywhere can breath a sigh of relief that these laws, open to interpretation and likely to be abused, have been put down.”
Full announcement and text of decision follow the jump!
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Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the First Amendment rights of the comics medium. Our work takes us into courtrooms, classrooms, conventions and libraries all over the United States where we provide legal aid,…
Remembering Burton Joseph
Burton Joseph, pioneering First Amendment advocate and long serving legal counsel for Comic Book Legal Defense Fund died at his home in San Francisco on March 31 at the age of 79. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is honored to salute Mr. Joseph with remembrances from his friends and colleagues.
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What is the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund? Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment rights of the comics art form and its community of retailers, creators, publishers, librarians, and…
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Membership Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain. A Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger. Blankets, Craig Thompson. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel. What do all of these books have in common? Like many other fine examples of literature, both textual and graphic, they…