Internet

A federal judge has blocked enforcement of an amended portion of the state of Ohio's sex offence law, which had extended the definition of material deemed "harmful to juveniles" to include certain computer-based content. The law -- passed by the Ohio legislature in February and signed by Governor Bob Taft in May -- was challenged in U.S. District Court by a broad-based coalition, which included the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and Dayton bookstore Wilkie News.

An ever-increasing number of American Booksellers Association member bookstores are reporting to the Book Sense Bestseller List by using BookScan. Bookstores using Anthology, Books in Stores, Booklog, Computac/Square One, IBID, or WordStock systems can use BookScan to generate a weekly sales data file and to orchestrate electronic transmission of the file -- within a matter of seconds.

Mary Alice Gorman and Richard Goldman, the husband and wife owners of the Oakmont, Pennsylvania's Mystery Lovers Bookshop, are veteran e-newsletter publishers. They understand that, when mailing out an e-newsletter, bounced e-mails are part of the game. The reasons for undeliverables are numerous: addresses change constantly, Internet Service Providers [ISPs] and the Internet can be unreliable, e-mail addresses are often written down wrong, etcetera. One reason that never occurred to them was an ISP bouncing their e-mails on purpose.

On Tuesday, June 25, the U.S. House of Representatives voted, by a margin of 413 to 8, to pass the Child Obscenity and Pornography Protection Act of 2002 (COPPA). The bill, HR 4623, amends the federal criminal code to criminalize the production, dissemination, or possession of computer-generated, or computer images that are, or are virtually indistinguishable from, child pornography.

On June 20, the United States government filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging a federal court’s ruling that the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) violated the First Amendment. The CIPA statute provided for a direct appeal from the panel decision directly to the Supreme Court.

Any experienced e-mail user knows the drill: Log on, check mark the spam, and click delete. Then, if you have any relevant e-mail, you open and read it. For those e-mails you’re not sure of, you may open them -- but if you don’t see the point within two seconds, click! Deleted.

On May 31, a panel of three federal judges ruled that the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) violated the First Amendment. In a press statement regarding the decision, the American Library Association said it applauded, "the panel of judges for their thoughtfulness and clear understanding of the issues at stake….Americans cannot afford to lose access to the thousands of Web sites offering legal, useful, and valuable information blocked by…filters.

In a complex decision that provided neither side with exactly what it wanted, on May 13, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling that had declared the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) unconstitutional. In a vote of 8-1, the Supreme Court vacated a decision of the Third U.S. Court of Appeals, which had held that COPA was unconstitutional because the law’s use of "community standards" to identify material that was harmful to minors was "substantially overbroad."

Beginning today, ABA members can access all the fully updated information in the ABA Book Buyer’s Handbook (BBH) in an online edition. In development for over a year, the online BBH provides access to approximately 5,600 publisher, wholesaler, and distributor listings in a fully interactive format, which can be searched by such criteria as company name, keyword, and ISBN prefix.

Since its online launch in January, Bookselling This Week has gotten high marks for its increased postings of news and features and its ease of use. Since going online, BTW has also seen a 57 percent increase in its subscription base. However, many bookseller readers have noted to ABA that they miss the easy accessibility of a printed version of a weekly BTW.

Final arguments in the case that will decide the constitutionality of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) were heard on April 4 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The legal challenge was brought by the American Library Association (ALA) -- together with 10 other plaintiffs -- and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) (whose own legal challenge to the law was consolidated by the court and heard together with ALA’s case). Indications are that the panel of three judges will rule by early May.

Starting on Monday, March 25, in Philadelphia, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania will begin hearing a case that will decide the constitutionality of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Monday’s trial will be the culmination of a legal challenge by the American Library Association (ALA) and 10 other plaintiffs -- including the Freedom to Read Foundation and a number of state library associations -- to CIPA. Last July, a three-judge federal district court ruled against the U.S.

On February 6, 2002, the fight over free speech on the Internet returned to a Brattleboro, Vermont, courtroom, as the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) continued the legal case over the constitutionality of a Vermont statute criminalizing sexual content communicated via the Internet. But the hearing -- held almost a year to the day after ABFFE and a diverse group of civil rights organizations and businesses first filed the complaint -- was more a battle over legal language than free speech.