“Copyright Troll” Lawyer Gets Sanctioned (Again)–Sands v. Bauer Media
Attorney Richard Liebowitz has filed more than 1,100 lawsuits since the beginning of 2016, a campaign this judge calls a “downpour.” This initiative has not gone smoothly. The court recaps: Mr. Liebowitz has been sanctioned, reprimanded, and advised to “clean…
Competitor Gets Pyrrhic Victory in False Advertising Suit Over Search Ads–Harbor Breeze v. Newport Fishing
The litigants compete in the whale watching industry in LA/Orange Counties. The plaintiffs operate out of Long Beach/San Pedro, the defendants out of Newport Beach. If you’re not familiar with the geography, Long Beach and Newport Beach are about 20…
IP/Internet/Antitrust Professor Amicus Brief in 1-800 Contacts v. FTC
Prof. Mark Lemley (Stanford Law) and I filed an amicus brief in 1-800 Contacts v. FTC with the Second Circuit on behalf of 29 professors of intellectual property, Internet law, and antitrust. The abstract: The case involves 1-800 Contacts’ settlement…
Terrible Ninth Circuit 230(c)(2) Ruling Will Make the Internet More Dangerous–Enigma v. Malwarebytes
The Ninth Circuit has issued a Section 230(c)(2) opinion that creates significant problems for anti-spyware/spam/virus vendors (I’ll call them “anti-threat vendors”). The ruling will paralyze their decision-making, expose them to greater legal threats, and reduce their ability to protect consumers…
And At the End of the Day, the CCPA Remains Very Much the Same (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Tanya Forsheit I am back to provide a post mortem on what many have portrayed – inaccurately – as a long and successful battle by business interests to gut the CCPA. The legislative session is over and,…
Court Enforces Arbitration Clause in “Modified Clickwrap”–Chen v. Sierra Trading Post
This case doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s typical of what I’m seeing. The plaintiffs claim that the retailer Sierra Trading Post (STP) provides misleading comparison prices. STP sought to send the case to arbitration based on its TOU…
Section 230 Applies to Facebook’s Post Removals and Account Suspensions–King v. Facebook
The court summarizes the facts: King alleges Facebook removed multiple posts by him, and temporarily suspended his Facebook access on several occasions in 2018, for posts that Facebook deemed a violation of its terms of service (“ToS”). The crux of…
Emojis Have Unsettled Grammar Rules (and Why Lawyers Should Care)
A new article by three Dutch researchers sheds some fascinating light on the grammar of emojis, or more precisely, the lack thereof. Their abstract concludes: “while emoji may follow tendencies in their interactions with grammatical structure in multimodal text-emoji productions,…
There Is Essentially No Statute of Limitations for Online Copyright Infringement–APL v. US
This case involves a photo of stem cells, which allegedly used to be quite uncommon and therefore allegedly commanded a premium license fee. So you can see what’s worth litigating in federal court against the mightiest government in the world,…
Reminder: The Copyright Office Will Be Yanking Eligibility for the DMCA Online Safe Harbor (Again)
In 2016, the Copyright Office rejiggered how it handles DMCA Online Safe Harbor agent designations. Instead of an indefinite designation, a service could only designate an agent for 3 years, after which the designation would automatically expire unless renewed. The…