Facebook User Loses Lawsuit Over Account Termination–Young v. Facebook
By Eric Goldman Young v. Facebook, Inc., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52711 (N.D. Cal. May 17, 2011). My post on Judge Fogel’s Nov. 2010 dismissal of this case with leave to amend. Karen’s lawsuit-related website. I respect people of conviction,…
Quityerbitchin: Relative Search Results Placement Doesn’t Support Trademark Injunction–Bitchen Kitchen v. Bitchin’ Kitchen
By Eric Goldman Martha Elizabeth, Inc. v. Scripps Networks Interactive, LLC, 2011 WL 1750711 (W.D. Mich. May 9, 2011) It seems inconceivable to me that people would litigate over the term “Bitchin” almost 30 years after the Valley Girl song…
47 USC 230 and Message Board Cases
By Eric Goldman [I’ve been sitting on this blog post since March, so this post is slightly out of date. For example, I believe the recent Kruska ruling would be a new addition to the list. Putting aside any recent…
Two Recent Social Media Defendants Avoid Personal Jurisdiction
By Eric Goldman As I’ve said repeatedly, I try to stay away from blogging Internet personal jurisdiction cases. It’s hard to get excited about any civil procedure topic (no offense to the litigators and Civ Pro profs reading the blog!),…
Flash Cookies Lawsuit Tossed for Lack of Harm–La Court v. Specific Media
By Eric Goldman La Court v. Specific Media, Inc., 8:10-cv-01256-GW-JCG (C.D. Cal. April 28, 2011) Lawsuits over cookies seem so Y2K to me. I thought we’d pretty much concluded that placing cookies wasn’t actionable a decade ago (see, e.g., In…
Another Defense-Favorable Righthaven Ruling–Righthaven v. Choudhry
By Eric Goldman Righthaven v. Choudhry, 2011 WL 1743839 (D. Nev. May 3, 2011) This lawsuit involves the “Vdara Death-Ray” image published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which has been the basis of numerous Righthaven lawsuits. In this case, Choudhry…
Ruminations on the Likelihood of Consumer Confusion Standard in Trademark Law
By Eric Goldman Last month, I attended the Third Trademark Scholars’ Roundtable in Bloomington, Indiana. See my prior blog posts about the first and second roundtables. See a photo of the participants. As usual, Rebecca acted as event chronicler. See…
California’s Reader Privacy Act: A First Step in a New Direction (Guest Blog Post)
By Sonya Ziaja (with comments at the end from Eric) [Eric’s note: this guest post is from Sonya Ziaja, J.D., a California attorney and co-owner of Ziaja Consulting LLC. She writes regularly for LegalMatch’s Law Blog and Ziaja Consulting’s blog,…
Cease & Desist Letter to iTunes Isn’t Covered by 17 USC 512(f)–Red Rock v. UMG
By Eric Goldman Rock River Communications, Inc. v. Universal Music Group, Inc., 2011 WL 1598916 (C.D.Cal. April 27, 2011) We continue to get more cases telling us what 17 USC 512(f), the cause of action for bogus copyright takedown notices,…
Department of Commerce Releases Worthless Report on Trademark Bullying
By Eric Goldman Trademark Litigation Tactics and Federal Government Services to Protect Trademarks and Prevent Counterfeiting, April 2011. [For background, see my earlier blog post on trademark bullies. The term “bully” appears only 4 times in the report; as FN51…