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Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson
Supreme Court of the United States (1952) | 96 L. Ed. 2d 1098; 72 S. Ct. 777; 343 U.S. 495; 1952 U.S. LEXIS 2796; 96 L. Ed. 1098; 1 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1357
TL;DR: The Supreme Court struck down a New York law allowing films to be banned as "sacrilegious." It held that motion pictures are a form of speech protected by the First Amendment and that the term "sacrilegious" is an unconstitutionally vague standard for censorship.
Legal Significance: This landmark case extended First Amendment protection to motion pictures for the first time, overturning prior precedent. It established that a state cannot engage in prior restraint of expression based on a vague, content-based standard like "sacrilegious."