Why I Oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)/E-PARASITES Act
By Eric Goldman [Note: I’ve been working on this post for about 2 weeks, so my apologies if my comments are duplicative of the intervening discussion about the bill] The DMCA online safe harbors have worked pretty well over the…
LinkedIn Beats Referrer URL Privacy Class Action on Article III Standing Grounds–Low v. LinkedIn
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with comments from Eric] Low v. LinkedIn, 2011 WL 5509848 (N.D. Ca.; Nov. 11, 2011) Low brought a putative class action against LinkedIn, complaining about the fact that LinkedIn “allows transmission of users’ personally identifiable browsing…
Courts Says Employer’s Lawsuit Against Ex-Employee Over Retention and Use of Twitter Account can Proceed–PhoneDog v. Kravitz
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] PhoneDog v. Kravitz, 2011 WL 5415612 (N.D. Ca.; Nov. 8, 2011) Another day, another post-employment dispute over a social media account. In this case, Noah Kravitz worked for PhoneDog, which is an “interactive mobile news and…
Employers Demanding the Right to Remotely Wipe Employees’ Phones?
By Eric Goldman I got the following email from one of my students (I edited a little to increase the anonymity): Recently, my spouse’s company announced that it is going to implement a new policy regarding those employees using their…
Ohio Court of Appeals: Lawyer-Plaintiff Can’t Sue for Misleading Email Ads Which he Knew Were Misleading — Cicero v. American Satelitte
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Cicero v. American Satellite, Inc., 2011-Ohio-4918 (Ohio Ct. App. Sept. 27, 2011) [pdf] Cicero is a lawyer who lives and practices in the state of Ohio. He sued defendant based on 85 marketing emails sent on…
Australian Court Says Google Isn’t Liable for Advertiser’s Misleading Ad–ACCC v. Trading Post (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Mark Bender, with some comments by Eric Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Trading Post Australia Pty Ltd [2011] FCA 1086 (September 22, 2011, corrected October 10, 2011) [Eric’s introduction: Mark Bender is a business law lecturer…
Good News/Bad News About the Number of Blogs Eligible for the 17 USC 512 Safe Harbor
By Eric Goldman My 2006 article about blog law included the following passage (footnotes omitted): few blogs satisfy the numerous technical prerequisites for § 512 eligibility, such as registering their websites with the U.S. Copyright Office. To assess this, on…
October 2011 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Copyright * MUST READ from Techdirt: MPAA Helped Police Seize ‘Pirated’ DVDs That Were Actually Fully Authorized. On the topic of errors in determining copyright infringement, the incident a powerful reminder both that even those “in the…
Stebbins’ Lawsuit Against Google Dismissed as “Frivolous”–Stebbins v. Google
By Eric Goldman Stebbins v. Google, Inc., 2011 WL 5150879 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 27, 2011). Stebbins’ motion to confirm arbitration award (the equivalent of his complaint in this case). Arkansas resident David Stebbins appears to be cranking up a one-man…
Minnesota Appeals Court Says Tracking Statute Excludes Use of GPS to Track Jointly Owned Vehicle — State v. Hormann
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] State v. Hormann, A10-18722 (Minn. Ct. App. October 19, 2011) Hormann was charged with installing a tracking device on his then-wife’s car, in violation of a Minnesota statute prohibiting the use of, among other things, tracking…