Legal Blog Faces Defamation Liability for Mischaracterizing Prior Legal Proceedings–Huon v. Above the Law
Plaintiff, a lawyer, was charged with assault in 2008 and charged in 2009 for cyberstalking and witness harassment (based on one of his blog posts?) involving the same alleged victim. He was acquitted of both charges. His charges and trial…
Section 230 Precludes Injunctive Relief Against Message Boards–Medytox v. InvestorsHub
We’re celebrating #ThrowbackThursday today at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog! InvestorsHub runs message boards on financial topics. A user, Hawley, posted several messages on InvestorsHub about Medytox and its principals. Medytox and the principals sued Hawley for defamation and…
Lawsuit Over User-Posted Celebrity Photos Survives Dismissal–BWP v. Hollywood Fan Sites
The plaintiffs own copyrights in celebrity photos. The defendants run the Hollywood.com “fan site network” with 1,500+ websites dedicated to celebrities, TV shows, etc. The complaint alleges that the entire fan site network is predicated on republishing stolen photos, and…
Perfect 10 Loses Copyright Suit Against USENET Service Provider–Perfect 10 v. Giganews
Giganews acts as a USENET service provider. Perfect 10 is the litigious pornographer that has helped define Internet copyright law for the last 15 years. It sued Giganews because Perfect 10’s copyrighted images are distributed on USENET. After over three…
PissedConsumer Defeats Preliminary Injunction–Roca v. Consumer Opinion Corp.
Roca makes and sells dietary supplements. They’ve made a series of legally dubious choices, but I think their problems start with their desire to suppress negative consumer reviews. The court describes that: [Roca’s] Purchase Agreement requires customers to agree that,…
LinkedIn Can’t Shake Publicity Rights Claims Based on Reminder Emails
This is a lawsuit against LinkedIn alleging that LinkedIn wrongly sent out repeated invites to users’ contacts. In an initial ruling, Judge Koh denied LinkedIn’s request to dismiss on the grounds of standing but dismissed the federal claims for alleged violations of…
Are Parents Liable For Their Children’s Online Pranks?–Boston v. Athearn
Dustin Athearn, who was 13, decided to “have some fun” at a “friend’s” expense. He did what any modern teenager does to poke fun at someone: he created a fake Facebook page in their name. Along with a friend Melissa,…
Q3 2014 Quick Links, Part 1 (RTBF, Reviews, IP & More)
Right to Be Forgotten * U.S. Attitudes Toward the ‘Right to Be Forgotten’: 1. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe some version of the right to be forgotten is necessary. 2. Thirty-nine percent want a European-style blanket right to be forgotten,…
A Seismic Ruling On Pre-1972 Sound Recordings and State Copyright Law–Flo & Eddie v. Sirius XM Radio (Guest Blog Post)
By Tyler Ochoa [Eric’s intro: in Tyler’s cover email to me, he told me the ruling was “huge, as in 1906-San-Francisco-earthquake huge. It literally could result in undoing 75 years of copyright history.”] A federal court in California has held…
LiveJournal Wins 512(c) Safe Harbor Ruling For Celebrity Gossip Blog–Mavrix v. LiveJournal
This case involves a LiveJournal blog called “Oh No They Didn’t!” (ONTD) that republishes reader submissions about celebrity gossip. There are nine moderators of the blog, including one–Brian Delzer–who became a LiveJournal employee. Unsurprisingly given the blog’s subject, readers submitted…