New Jersey Appeals Court Reverses Anti-Harassment Order Based on Emails – E.L. v. R.L.M

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] E.L. v. R.L.M, 2012 N.J. SUPER. UNPUB. LEXIS 1199 (N.J. Ct. App.; May 30, 2012) E.L. and R.L.M. divorced, but they had children together. E.L. had custody of the children but R.L.M. had liberal visitation. Prior…

Photographer’s Suit Against Client for Republishing Photos on Facebook Proceeds – Davis v. Tampa Bay Arena

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with comments by Eric] Davis v. Tampa Bay Arena, Ltd., 2012 WL 2116136 (M.D. Fla.; June 11, 2012) This seems like a run-of-the-mill dispute between a photographer and client, but I think it contains some helpful…

Can Korean Copyright Owners Sue Australian Defendants in California? Judges Disagree–DFSB Kollective v. Bourne

By Eric Goldman DFSB Kollective Co. Ltd. v. Bourne, 2012 WL 2376209 (N.D. Cal. June 22, 2012). DFSB Kollective is a Korea-based copyright owner and a leading producer of Korean music. It went on a litigation tear on March 7,…

Court Refuses to Dismiss Claims Against Alleged Twitter-Bot Spammer–Twitter v. Skootle

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Twitter, Inc. v. Skootle Corp., et al., 2012 WL 2375486 (N.D. Cal.; June 22, 2012) Twitter sued several alleged spammers, including (1) those who provided software for the use of automated account creation and tweeting, and…

Will the Floodgates Open Up for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Claims Against Websites?–National Association of the Deaf v. Netflix

By Eric Goldman National Association of the Deaf v. Netflix, Inc., 3:11-cv-30168-MAP (D. Mass. June 19, 2012) This is a bad ruling. Really terrible. It’s the kind of results-oriented judicial activism that undermines the public’s trust in the judiciary. The…

Wisconsin Appeals Court Punts on the Legality of Buying People’s Names for Keyword Advertising–Habush v. Cannon

By Eric Goldman Habush v. Cannon, 2012 WL 2345137 (Wis. App. Ct. June 21, 2012). The case record. My prior blog post on this case. You may recall this case. Habush Habush & Rottier and Cannon & Dunphy are both…

Mortuary Student Can Be Disciplined for Facebook Posts–Tatro v. University of Minnesota

By Eric Goldman Tatro v. University of Minnesota, 2012 WL 2328002 (Minn. June 20, 2012). My prior blog post on the appellate court ruling in this case. This is one of the many lawsuits over a school disciplining a student…

Another Failed Effort to Remove a Ripoff Report Posting–Karnaby v. Mckenzie

By Eric Goldman Karnaby v. Mckenzie, 2012 WL 2149457 (Conn. Super. Ct. May 10, 2012) [Jan. 2018 UPDATE: In an unusual development, in Jan. 2018, Ripoff Report redacted its report after Karnaby successfully arbitrated through Ripoff Report’s private arbitration option….

Another Bad Ruling for PissedConsumer on Trademark and 47 USC 230 Claims–Amerigas v. Opinion Corp.

By Eric Goldman Amerigas Propane, LP v. Opinion Corp., 2012 WL 2327788 (E.D. Pa. June 19, 2012) You may recall PissedConsumer, the site that solicits user gripes, SEOs the crud out of them, and then offers the griped business pay-to-play…

CYBERsitter Sues Google for AdWords Trademark Infringement

By Eric Goldman CYBERsitter LLC v. Google, Inc., CV12-5293 (C.D. Cal. complaint filed June 18, 2012) CYBERsitter competes with Net Nanny and ContentWatch (apparently both owned by the same entity, ContentWatch) in the Internet filtering software niche. CYBERsitter claims ContentWatch…