A federal judge on February 22 issued a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of a California law that sought to prohibit the publication of the ages of actors, producers and others on the popular internet movie database, IMDb. FAC joined several other free-speech advocacy groups in filing a “friend of the court” brief last month opposing the law on First Amendment grounds. That brief argued the IMDb law ran afoul of the strong First Amendment protections for the publication of truthful information.
The order, by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco, found that the “IMDb law” indeed violates the First Amendment. It concludes that the law’s effort to prevent publication of factual information is an impermissible restriction of noncommercial speech on the basis of content.
The “friend of the court” brief joined by FAC was written and submitted by EFF.