July-August 2010 Quick Links, Part 2
By Eric Goldman
IP
* As expected, Rosetta Stone appealed its trademark loss against Google. My previous blog post.
* Reality Blurred successfully counternoticed to overcome CBS’s DMCA takedown notice for the Survivor contract/rule book.
* Doctor’s Associates, Inc. v. Subway.SY LLC, 2010 WL 3187899 (D. Minn. July 30, 2010). Subway sandwiches wins an enforcement action against a possible Syrian knockoff advertising subway.sy and promoting itself on Facebook.
* Tur gives up his lawsuit against YouTube. My previous blog post. In a partially related development, more copyright owners are choosing to leave infringing videos up and have YouTube monetize the videos for them.
* Blizzard Wins $88 Million in Private Server Lawsuit.
* Christen v. Iparadigms, LLC, 2010 WL 3063137 (E.D. Va. Aug. 4, 2010). An effort to sue Turnitin for non-copyright claims fails due to copyright preemption. See my post on the copyright challenge against Turnitin.
* CMLP issued a report on news aggregators.
* F.B.T. Productions v. Aftermath Records (9th Cir. Sept. 3, 2010). An interesting opinion with possible implications for the First Sale doctrine as well as the sale/license distinction. The court says: “where a copyright owner transfers a copy of copyrighted material, retains title, limits the uses to which the material may be put, and is compensated periodically based on the transferee’s exploitation of the material, the transaction is a license” and not a sale.
* Mark Zuckerberg gets the paparazzi treatment courtesy of Gawker.
* In re Facebook Consumer Privacy Litigation, No. 5:10-cv-00429-JF (N. D. Cal. notice of dismissal July 22, 2010). BNA reports: “Plaintiffs in a putative class action against Facebook Inc. July 22 voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit claiming changes the social networking website made to its privacy policies last year misled users about how their personal data would be used and protected.”
* In re Facebook PPC Advertising, 5:09-cv-03043-JF (N.D. Cal. Aug. 25, 2010). The anti-click fraud disclaimer in Facebook’s advertising contract “disclaimer does not cover Defendant’s own actions, irrespective of their purpose; nor does it cover the actions of third parties if the action is not for fraudulent or improper purposes.” The court further says that what constitutes an “improper purpose” is ambiguous. Previous blog post.
* Bob Sullivan on Facebook’s inflection point: Will it grow into an eBay or wither into a MySpace? In a related development, Facebook got panned in a survey of consumer satisfaction.
* After a public spat between Google and Yelp, Yelp’s reviews are no longer included in Google’s Places pages.
* In Re Google Buzz User Privacy Litigation, 10-cv-00672 (N.D. Cal.). Google settles the Buzz privacy lawsuits for $8.5M.
* Hypocritical NYT editorial/attack piece on Google algorithm. Responses from Danny Sullivan and Wired. Partially related article on SEL: Does Google want diverse search results?
* 37 states are chasing Google over the Street View fiasco. The Google Street View lawsuits have been consolidated in the Northern District of California before Judge Ware. Meanwhile, a UK review suggests that Google didn’t collect any useful data via Street View.
* Wired recounts Google’s rocky 2010. Danny Sullivan piles on with some of Google’s biggest failures.
Privacy/Anonymity
* In re Anonymous Online Speakers (9th Cir. July 12, 2010). Potentially important ruling on the legal standards for unmasking anonymous online commenters.
* Rep. Rush introduced a new federal privacy bill (HR 5777).
* A troublesome data sale of personal information by XY.com is avoided.
* Republishing social security numbers is protected by the First Amendment.
* The California legislature passed an anti-“e-personation” bill. EFF coverage.