Ill-Advised Attempt to Blow Up the DMCA Online Safe Harbors Unsurprisingly Fails–Athos v. YouTube
Athos owns the copyrights to many classic Mexican films. Users regularly upload its film clips to YouTube. These uploads have irritated Athos since 2014. However, Athos rejected YouTube’s fast-lane options for copyright owners (such as the Copyright Match Tool, Content…
Roundup of Recent Section 230 Developments
Sometimes the Section 230 developments come faster than I can blog ’em, so they pile up in my queue. This post cleans the queue. * * * A.M. v. Omegle.com, LLC, 2023 WL 1470269 (D. Ore. Feb. 2, 2023). A…
The Internet Survives SCOTUS Review (This Time)–Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google
Today was the 2023 Super Bowl of Internet Law at the U.S. Supreme Court [FN]. SCOTUS issued two eagerly awaited decisions in the Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google cases (as well as decisions in the Warhol copyright fair…
Two Common but Disingenuous Phrases About Section 230
[I initially planned to write up this analysis as a short academic essay. If you’re interested in working with me to adapt this blog post into an academic essay format, email me.] This blog post is about the following two…
“Twitter Files” Don’t Help Revive Jawboning Case–Hart v. Facebook
I previously described this lawsuit: Both Facebook and Twitter restricted Hart’s account access due to various posts over COVID, masking, and other culture war issues. Hart sued them for violating the First Amendment. You can guess how that went. Hart…
More on Law Firms and Competitive Keyword Ads–Nicolet Law v. Bye, Goff
This is another lawsuit between personal injury law firms over competitive keyword ads. The plaintiff is Nicolet Law, based in Hudson, Wisconsin with 14 offices in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The defendant is the Bye, Goff firm, based in River Falls,…
Section 230 Immunizes Bing’s Search Results–White v. Microsoft
This lawsuit relates to an episode of the TV show Evil Lives Here called “I Invited Him In,” which discusses an NY serial killer named Nathaniel White. A different Nathaniel White claimed that the episode improperly featured his mugshot and…
Twitter Account Suspension Lawsuits Keep Failing–Hall v. Twitter
This case involves a Twitter account held by Daniel Hall, who also used the aliases “Senza Vergogna” and “Sensa Verogna.” [Note: I believe those aliases reference an Italian movie about a son who engages in incest with his mom.] Hall…
Privacy Law Is Devouring Internet Law (and Other Doctrines)…To Everyone’s Detriment
What does “privacy” mean? It’s a simple question that lacks a single answer, even from privacy experts. Without a universally shared definition of privacy, scholars have instead attempted to “define” privacy by taxonomizing problems that they think should fit under…
Another Jawboning Case Fails in the Ninth Circuit–Kennedy v. Warren
This case involves a book called “The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal,” which includes a foreword from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sen. Warren wrote a letter to Amazon expressing “concerns” about…