Court Allows “Battery by GIF” Claim to Proceed–Eichenwald v. Rivello
Journalist Kurt Eichenwald suffered a seizure after seeing a tweet with a strobe GIF. The sender tweeted the GIF allegedly knowing Eichenwald suffered from epilepsy. The sender was charged criminally, and Eichenwald also filed a civil suit. Defendant moved to…
Lawsuit Over Cancer-Curing Honey Ads Still Sucks–Abid v. Google
Abid markets cancer-curing honey. He bought AdWords to promote his MightyHoney website. Google rejected the ads. He sued Google pro se for a variety of claims. The court previously granted Google’s motion to dismiss with leave to amend. My prior…
More Bad News for Uber’s Contract Formation–Ramos v. Uber
In last year’s Meyer v. Uber, Uber won an important ruling in the Second Circuit upholding its online contract formation with riders. Still, the contract formation news has not been all good for Uber. For example, in last year’s Metter v….
Craigslist Sex Sting Prosecution Rejected as “Outrageous Misconduct”–Washington v. Solomon
This case’s setup resembles dozens or hundreds of similar cases I’ve read. In 2014, a law enforcement officer (in this case, Skagit County Sheriff’s detective Theresa Luvera) posted a sex solicitation on Craigslist’s casual encounters. As we’ve discussed before, Craigslist’s…
TWiT’s Trademark Lawsuit Against Twitter Sent Back to the Drawing Board
The popular and long-running show “This Week in Tech,” commonly called TWiT, sued Twitter. TWiT provides audio and video content branded under the TWiT trademark. It alleges that Twitter’s offering of video services and content under the TWITTER brand infringes…
President Trump Violated the First Amendment by Blocking Users @realdonaldtrump
This is a lawsuit brought by Twitter users and the Knight Foundation against President Trump (and his social media strategist and press secretary). The lawsuit alleges that the President violates plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by blocking them on Twitter. The…
Who Needs a Copyright Small Claims Court? Evidence from the U.K.’s IP Enterprise Court (Guest Blog Post)
by guest bloggers Christian Helmers, Yassine Lefouili, Brian J. Love & Luke McDonagh Amidst recent excitement surrounding the Music Modernization Act (which passed the House last month) and the CLASSICS Act (the subject of Senate Judiciary hearings last week), it would…
Redfin Must Defend Copyright Suit Over Property Photos–Stross v. Redfin
Stross is a photographer who licenses his photographs to real estate agents. He licensed the photos through ACTRIS, a multiple listing service that compiles listings into a database for use by brokers and realtors. ACTRIS users who upload their photos…
Illinois Users’ Face-Scanning Privacy Lawsuit Against Facebook Headed to Trial
This is a class action asserting that Facebook’s face recognition and scanning practices violate the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act rights of Illinois users. The court previously rejected Facebook’s arguments based on choice of law and standing, and certified a class….
YouTube Defeats Another Remove-and-Relocate Lawsuit–Song Fi v. Google
The YouTube “remove-and-relocate” cases involve similar facts. A YouTuber uploaded a video and promoted it. YouTube suspected irregularities with the promotion, removed the video from its initial URL (breaking inbound links, stripping the comments, and resetting the like and view…