Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/12/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Dec 22, 2003, at 1:55 PM, B.D. Colen wrote: > Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 11:02:16 -0500 > From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net> > Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: Inspired but arrested > Message-ID: <006801c3c8a4$f8beee40$6501a8c0@CCA4A5EF37E11E> > References: > > That may indeed be true, Rolfe. But if I'm not mistaken courts have > restricted soliciting in malls, handing out literature, etc. - and I > hope that one of our attorneys would correct me if I'm wrong. And that > mall owners have used their 'property rights' to enforce regulations > against gatherings of teenagers in the malls. > > The law is indeed evolving, but that, unfortunately, makes it even more > likely that one can be caught up in a very ugly, very messy, legal > situation. > > B. D. > > Certain courts have upheld restrictions on soliciting in malls, etc. But commercial solicitation is not a protected form of speech (or at the very least does not enjoy the same degree of protection as individual speech). I think the trend is to enforce individual constitutional protections in public areas of malls. Again, I emphasize trend. This is far from a settled issue. After all, we know that the mall owners are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, etc. simply because the mall is privately owned. Does anybody seriously think that a mall owner can restrict who I talk to or what we talk about in their mall? I am obviously not an attorney (nor do I play one on television) but I try to follow these types of cases because I am personally concerned about how the law is evolving in this area. Judges don't seem to like the idea of the mall owner benefiting from the "publicness" of the mall only when they choose to do so. It is sort of like trying to put the horse back in the barn after the barn door is open. There is a parallel in copyright law; if for example, a company distributes a movie trailer or piece of artwork so widely and indiscriminately that the company loses control over who sees it, it will be very difficult for that company to later try to enforce copyright protection over that material. Near my home we had a case last year where there was a small demonstration in a public area of a mall, the security guards got overzealous in breaking it up, and the mall owner is now settling the multi-million dollar lawsuits which resulted. - -- Rolfe Tessem | Lucky Duck Productions, Inc. rolfe@ldp.com | 96 Morton Street (212) 463-0029 | New York, NY 10014 - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html