DMCA Safe Harbor Doesn’t Protect Zazzle’s Printing of Physical Items–Greg Young Publishing v. Zazzle
The court summarizes the key facts: “GYPI alleges that Zazzle has publicly displayed 41 paintings by Westmoreland or Erickson on its website, and that Zazzle has created consumer products bearing these images.” GYPI lacked standing to enforce the Westmoreland paintings,…
Ill-Advised Copyright Lawsuit Over Facebook Live Video Becomes Costly For Plaintiff–Konangataa v. ABC
You probably remember the story about a new dad’s Facebook Live broadcast of his baby’s birth. His video was covered by many media outlets, including some outlets that published snippets of the video (re the defendants in this case: 30…
Section 230 Protects Google’s Decision Not To De-Index Content–Bennett v. Google
Dawn J. Bennett was a financial advisor in major trouble with the SEC. She also has a sporting apparel company. She hired an SEO, Pierson, to improve the search engine indexing of her website. After a payment dispute, Pierson posted…
Does the Packingham Ruling Presage Greater Government Control Over Search Results? Or Less? (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Heather Whitney [Heather is a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School (Spring 2017). She has also been Bigelow Fellow & Lecturer in Law at University of Chicago Law School (2014-2016) and a Googler (2007-2010). She will be…
Frequency of Courts’ References to Emojis and Emoticons Over Time
[This is another excerpt from my Emojis and the Law paper.] In preparing the article, I gathered a dataset of all cases I could find in Westlaw and Lexis containing the word “emoticon” or “emoji.” This dataset is subject to…
Ban on Sex Offenders Using Social Media Violates First Amendment–Packingham v. North Carolina
Yesterday, the Supreme Court struck down a North Carolina law that banned registered sex offenders from using social media sites. It’s a rare treat to get a Supreme Court opinion delving into Internet content regulations, and as a bonus, this…
Trademark Registrations for Emojis
[This is another excerpt from my Emojis and the Law paper.] The Trademark Office has registered emoji trademarks. On January 20, 2017, I conducted a search in the TESS database for “emoji” and identified 385 records. At that time, most…
“Offensive, Rude, Annoying, Mean-Spirited & Ill-Advised” Blog Posts Aren’t Defamatory–Milazzo v. Connolly
This is another case study of the overly litigious world of homeowners’ associations. For example, a few months ago, I blogged about another lawsuit involving a condo association, its no-pet policy, and a string of vitriolic blog posts over residents…
Facebook Isn’t Liable for Fake User Account–Caraccioli v. Facebook
I blogged about this case last year. (This case is also indexed in our compendium of nonconsensual pornography cases). In my prior post, I described the facts: Franco Caraccioli is a third-year law student in San Diego. For reasons not…
Recapping the “Can Technology Rescue Democracy” Essay Series at The Atlantic
As I mentioned before, I helped organize a series of essays at The Atlantic addressing the question: “Is technology hurting our democracy, and can it help save it?” The series is now complete, so I thought it was worth revisiting…