Talk:New York Times Co. v. Sullivan

Link To Existing
Suggest moving article/linking to SCOTUS/Journalism portals for review of class importance. also link interior sidebar to same portals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quietcat (talk • contribs) 17:35, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

all we want
all we want to know is did he have to give the money back...we're confused...we're writing a paper here...and we need info...HELP! thanks!
 * Did who get what money back? Postdlf 04:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Burden of proof = success?
Because of the extremely high burden on the plaintiff, and the difficulty in proving essentially what is inside a person's head, such cases rarely, if ever preval against public figures.

This doesn't make sense at all (not to mention the misspelling of "prevail". It is the plaintiff that would bring the libel charge, who then has to meet the high burden of proving the malice of the defendant. That would imply that it is hard for a plaintiff to win such a case. Presumably the plaintiff, i.e. bringer of action, i.e. the one alleging wrong, would be the public figure. I think it should say "if ever prevail for public figures". - Keith D. Tyler &para; 21:30, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Compliments on your sharp eye and shrewd observation. Good catch. ~ Penlite (talk) 07:14, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Photo of the ad?
Is it possible to get a picture of the ad? It would really help the article. --Cdogsimmons 23:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Tha original add is reproduced in Make No Law, and could be scanned in from a copy of that book. It would need a fair use ratrionale. DES (talk) 05:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Copyright Examination request
The image involved here is a reproduction of a full-page New York Times ad, originally published on 29 March 1960. The ad was the subject matter of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan a very important case in US Constitutional law, and so an image of the actual ad might well be considered "iconic" and "historically significant" It is surely not replaceable by anything else. Lewis, the author of Make no Law, the classic book-length study of the case, used the reproduction as the frontispiece for that book. Surely this is a transformative use, and equally surely there is no current commercial market for an image of a newspaper ad from 1960. Furthermore, since the ad was published in the US before 1964, and all of its authors were US nationals, it is now in the Public Domain in the US unless copyright on the ad (which would have belonged to the fund-raising committee that wrote the ad, not to the Times) was renewed. The committee was surely disbanded long before the renewal period in 1988-89, so the copyright is unlikly to have been renewed, and a search of the on line renewal records at the Library of congress reveals no such renewal -- but for such short works the records are not always complete, or may be filed under a misleading heading. Still perhaps this constitutes sufficient due diligence? I have a copy of the book which contains the reproduction of the ad, and a scanner. DES (talk) 23:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about this. Normally at Wikipedia we're very wary about making claims that copyright wasn't renewed based on just searching online alone. I think Project Gutenberg has some lawyers that further investigate copyright status if they think some very important work has fallen into the public domain but if it's just something like this they probably wouldn't bother. I would just tag it fair use, which it clearly is in an article about the court case. Calliopejen1 (talk) 14:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

50th Anniversary puff piece largely by article's subject
The section ==50th Anniversary== seems to be largely unnecessary, gratuitous and inappropriate content -- echoing (in celebratory fashion), and directly quoting at length, a very lengthy paragraph (WP:COPYOTHERS issues?) of editorial opinion, published by none other than the victorious plaintiff in the case. Rather like quoting a victorious politician on his/her opinion of why their victory is of "historic" importance to the nation. Hardly objective, and rather cooly dismissive of the WP:NPOV rule.

Regardless of whether you agree with the expressed opinions, they are very clearly not sourced from a WP:NEUTRALSOURCE. Quite the opposite -- they're sourced from one of the contenders in the case.

Given that this is one of the most famous and influential U.S. Supreme Court precedents, there is, of course, an abundance of independent and reputable sources, including a flood of academic literature, on this subject. No need to use Wikipedia to simply disseminate the self-congratulatory public-relations statements of the plaintiff.

Perhaps this section should be deleted, in its entirety, or replaced with content from a WP:NEUTRALSOURCE?

~ Penlite (talk) 07:26, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Right you are.
 * (Delete; maybe keep 2014 editorial as external link?)
 * Instead, the article would ideally expand on the "later developments" and applications of the ruling. groupuscule (talk) 10:47, 7 June 2017 (UTC)