Congress Probably Will Ruin Section 230 This Week (SESTA/FOSTA Updates)
For the past year, I’ve been covering Congress’ efforts to create a sex trafficking exception to Section 230’s immunity. From the beginning, it was clear that the proponents did not understand Section 230’s powerful but counter-intuitive doctrinal mechanisms, yet their initiative…
RSS Feeds I Still Subscribe To After a Dozen Years
I was rooting around my hard drive and I rediscovered this snapshot of my RSS subscriptions from May 2006. (I was using Bloglines as my RSS reader then…do you remember it?!). I’ve starred and bolded the feeds I’m still subscribed to…
Google Gets Easy Section 230 Win in DC Circuit–Bennett v. Google
[It’s impossible to blog about Section 230 without reminding you that it remains highly imperiled. Also, I have several other Section 230 rulings to blog that I’ll get to eventually.] I previously described the facts of this case: Dawn J. Bennett was…
Design Principles for Consumer Protection Legislation (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Samuel Becher, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand [Eric’s note: I’m pleased to share this guest blog post from Prof. Samuel Becher, whose work has been mentioned on this blog before. This post is based on Prof. Becher’s new article, Unintended Consequences and the Design of…
In-Line Linking May Be Copyright Infringement–Goldman v. Breitbart News
Ugh, this decision is bad. How bad is it? It makes me sympathetic to Breitbart, and I didn’t even know that was possible. You may want a box of tissues nearby before reading this. The TL;DR: for over a decade, in-line linking has been treated…
Roundup of Materials from HTLI’s Content Moderation & Removal Conference
On February 2, 2018, the High Tech Law Institute held a groundbreaking conference, “Content Moderation and Removal at Scale.” The conference explored how Internet companies operationalize their content moderation and removal processes. Over 200 people attended the conference in person, and hundreds more watched…
Cox Loses DMCA Safe Harbor but Gets a New Trial on Contributory Infringement–BMG v. Cox
BMG sued Cox for the alleged copyright infringement of its users. The court described Cox’s “graduated” policy for terminating subscribers: The first notice alleging a subscriber’s infringement produces no action from Cox. The second through seventh notices result in warning emails…
Brief Roundup of Three Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Developments
1) Xymogen, Inc. v. Digitalev, LLC, 2018 WL 659723 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 1, 2018). This appears to be a typical competitive keyword advertising case, with the twist that the plaintiff also alleges counterfeiting. The defendant moved to dismiss. First, the court finds jurisdiction…
Twitter Defamation Claim Defeated by a Question Mark–Boulger v. Woods
This is a defamation lawsuit brought against James Woods by a woman (Portia Boulger) who was wrongly identified as a Nazi supporter online. In March, candidate Trump had a rally in Chicago. The Tribune posted a photo of a woman…
Copyright Owner Can Serve DMCA Counter-Notifier by Email–Epic Games v. Mendes
DMCA counter-notifications are rare, and litigation over them is even more rare. So my curiosity is piqued that this is the second 512(g) case I’m blogging in a week (the other: DMCA Counternotification Doesn’t Create Personal Jurisdiction in Copyright Owner’s…