Free Speech Unmuted: Spoiler Alert: Can You Get Sued For Revealing A Plot Point?
A deepish dive into how copyright law and the First Amendment interact.
Can revealing a plot twist get you sued? Inspired by the controversy surrounding HBO's Lanterns, Jane and I explore the tension between copyright protection and free speech. From Gerald Ford's memoirs to 2 Live Crew's "Pretty Woman" parody, they examine how courts distinguish protected expression from facts and ideas—and when fair use permits borrowing from someone else's work. Along the way, they consider why describing an ending differs from posting a clip, how leaks of unpublished material complicate the analysis, and when a spoiler might cross the line from bad manners to legal liability.
Also check out our past episodes:
- The Process Is The Punishment: ABC v. FCC with Stuart Benjamin
- Can AI Libel You? The Robby Starbuck Case
- Shrexting: Free Speech or Criminal Harassment?
- The First Amendment and Privacy Rights
- 'Defamacast' and More: How American Defamation Law Works
- Speech, Not "Conduct": Supreme Court Rules on Conversion Talk Therapy
- Equal Time, Stephen Colbert, and the Future of Political Broadcasting
- Student Speech, Threats, and the First Amendment
- Can Journalists Be Charged for Involvement in Protests? The Don Lemon Dilemma
- 2025: The Year In Free Speech
- Does the First Amendment Protect Supposedly "Addictive" Algorithms?
- Defamation Law in the Age of AI with Lyrissa Lidsky
- Free Speech and the Future of Legal Education
- From Brandenburg to Britain: Rethinking Free Speech in the Digital Era with Eric Heinze
- Kimmel, the FCC, and the Government's Power Over Broadcast Speech
- A Conversation with FIRE's Greg Lukianoff
- A Burning First Amendment Issue: President Trump's Executive Order on Flag Desecration
- Free Speech and Doxing
- The Supreme Court Rules on Protecting Kids from Sexually Themed Speech Online
- Free Speech, Public School Students, and "There Are Only Two Genders"
- Can AI Companies Be Sued for What AI Says?
- Harvard v. Trump: Free Speech and Government Grants
- Trump's War on Big Law
- Can Non-Citizens Be Deported For Their Speech?
- Freedom of the Press, with Floyd Abrams
- Free Speech, Private Power, and Private Employees
- Court Upholds TikTok Divestiture Law
- Free Speech in European (and Other) Democracies, with Prof. Jacob Mchangama
- Protests, Public Pressure Campaigns, Tort Law, and the First Amendment
- Misinformation: Past, Present, and Future
- I Know It When I See It: Free Speech and Obscenity Laws
- Speech and Violence
- Emergency Podcast: The Supreme Court's Social Media Cases
- Internet Policy and Free Speech: A Conversation with Rep. Ro Khanna
- Free Speech, TikTok (and Bills of Attainder!), with Prof. Alan Rozenshtein
- The 1st Amendment on Campus with Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky
- Free Speech On Campus
- AI and Free Speech
- Free Speech, Government Persuasion, and Government Coercion
- Deplatformed: The Supreme Court Hears Social Media Oral Arguments
- Book Bans – or Are They?