“Consumer Reviews of Doctors and Copyright Law” Talk Notes

By Eric Goldman You may recall that Medical Justice is a vendor trying to help doctors squelch online patient reviews–most recently by getting a prospective copyright assignment of the unwritten reviews and then sending 512(c)(3) takedown notices for any unwanted…

Jan.-Feb. 2011 Quick Links, Part 1 (Copyright Edition)

By Eric Goldman * I could do a whole separate category just for Righthaven: – Righthaven LLC v. South Coast Partners, Inc., 2011 WL 534046 (D. Nev. Feb. 8, 2011) held that another Righthaven defendant is subject to personal jurisdiction…

Web Host May Be Liable for Removing Only 1 of 3 Websites Operated by Its Customer–Hermeris v. Brandenburg

By Eric Goldman Hermeris v. Brandenburg, 2:10-cv-02531-JAR -KMH (D. Kan. Jan. 23, 2011) This is yet another web hosting copyright infringement case where the 17 USC 512 safe harbors aren’t discussed. (For other recent examples, see Rosen v. Hosting Services…

Free-to-Consumers Ad-Supported Website Isn’t Illegally Priced–Cammarata v. Bright Imperial

By Eric Goldman Cammarata v. Bright Imperial Ltd., 2011 WL 227943 (Cal. App. Ct. Jan. 26, 2011). The complaint. The trial court ruling. If you can’t compete with free, can you litigate it away? Kevin Cammarata ran subscription-based porn sites…

Another Copyright Owner Sent a Defective Takedown Notice and Faced 512(f) Liability–Rosen v. HSI

By Eric Goldman Rosen v. Hosting Services, Inc., 2010 WL 5630637 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 16, 2010). [This case just showed up for me in Westlaw. It’s not a major case but it’s worth a brief note even 5 months later]…

Top 5 Cyberlaw Developments of 2010, Plus a 2010 Year-in-Review

By Eric Goldman Earlier this Fall, I posted my top 8 trends in Internet law, and that’s a good place to start if you want to see how I think things are developing. Because of that post, this year I’m…

Ad Networks Ordered to Drop Allegedly Infringing Site–Elsevier v. eNom

By Eric Goldman Elsevier Ltd v. Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc., 1:11-cv-10026-RGS (D. Mass. injunction dated Jan. 14, 2011). See the TRO from Jan. 6 and the complaint. On the surface, this seems like a run-of-the-mill copyright enforcement. The plaintiffs…

Second Life Gets Out of Dispute Between Virtual Bunnies & Virtual Horses

By Eric Goldman Amaretto Ranch Breedables v. Ozimals, 3:10-cv-05696-CRB (N.D. Cal.). The Justia page. The case library: * Linden Lab’s opposition to the preliminary injunction * Ozimals’ non-opposition to the preliminary injunction * Amaretto’s preliminary injunction motion * The preliminary…

Canadian-Uploaded YouTube Video Doesn’t Infringe in US–Shropshire v. Canning

By Eric Goldman Shropshire v. Canning, 2011 WL 90136 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 11, 2011) This lawsuit relates to the Christmas novelty song, “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer,” a song I listened to far too many times while preparing…

TweetPhoto (now Plixi) To Start Charging For Twitter Celeb’s Pics

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] I posted last week about the AFP/Morel Haiti photo debacle where the court rejected AFP’s arguments that it had a license to photos posted to Twitpic by virtue of the Twitter & Twitpic terms of service….