Republishing Entire Newspaper Story is Fair Use–Righthaven v. CIO
By Eric Goldman Righthaven, LLC v. Jama, 2011 WL 1541613 (D. Nev. April 22, 2011). See my comprehensive blog post on Righthaven from October. [Note: A month ago, the judge orally dismissed the defendant in this case. Yesterday, the judge…
Blogger Gets 47 USC 230 Dismissal for Third Party Comment–Kruska v. Perverted Justice
By Eric Goldman Kruska v. Perverted Justice Foundation Inc., 2011 WL 1260224 (D. Ariz. April 5, 2011) This is my third time blogging this case. The latest ruling involves a blog, run by Brocious, for people fighting pedophiles. Someone (presumably…
Bulk Emailers (Mostly) Lose Three 47 USC 230(c)(2) Rulings–Holomaxx v. Microsoft/Yahoo & Smith v. TRUSTe
By Eric Goldman I’ve been so behind that it’s taken me until now to blog these cases from last month. All three opinions involve the same basic fact pattern: a bulk emailer gets blocked by an email service provider (relying…
YouTube and its Amici File Their Briefs in the Viacom v. YouTube Appeal
By Eric Goldman I’m catching up with the YouTube-side briefs in the Viacom v. YouTube appeal. (See my analogous post on the Viacom-side briefs). Once again, Michael Barclay has been kind enough to organize the briefs into a single post….
Announcing DoctoredReviews.com, a Website Against Doctors’ Efforts to Squelch Online Patient Reviews
By Eric Goldman I’m pleased to announce the launch of DoctoredReviews.com, a website that addresses Medical Justice’s form contract that seeks to restrict patients’ online reviews of doctors by taking a prospective copyright assignment in the patients’ unwritten reviews. Medical…
UC Irvine Virtual World Conference Notes
By Eric Goldman Last week, I attended and spoke at a conference at UC Irvine entitled “Governing the Magic Circle: Regulation of Virtual Worlds.” I didn’t take notes for every speaker, and as usual, these notes are my impressions, not…
Contacting a Person’s Facebook Friends Isn’t Stalking–People v. Welte
By Eric Goldman People v. Welte, 2011 WL 1331900 (N.Y. Just. Ct. April 7, 2011). The defendant was subject to the following order protecting the mother of his two children: “Respondent is to have no contact with Petitioner including personal…
March 2011 Quick Links, Part 3
By Eric Goldman Search Engines * Lots of Google antitrust activity: – Apparently, an EU antitrust investigation IS something that Microsoft would wish on its worst enemy. – Every legal regulator in the world is considering antitrust investigations into Google,…
StubHub Denied Section 230 Defense in Scalping Case–Hill v. StubHub
By Eric Goldman Hill v. StubHub, Inc., 2011 WL 1675043 (N.C. Super. Ct. Feb. 28, 2011). My previous blog post in this case. This is a putative class action lawsuit against StubHub for violating North Carolina’s anti-scalping laws, which both…
Republisher of Youthful Sexting Photos Avoids Liability (For Now)–Doe v. Peterson
By Eric Goldman Doe v. Peterson, 2011 WL 1120172 (E.D. Mich. March 24, 2011) This is an interesting sexting lawsuit. Doe took explicit photos of herself and sent them via MySpace to her then-boyfriend. She did not follow my recommendations…