Texas AG Sues Sony Under State Anti-Spyware Law
By Eric Goldman Texas v. Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Tx. Dist. Ct. complaint filed Nov. 21, 2005). From a legal standpoint, today wasn’t a good day for Sony. In addition to being sued by the EFF, Texas decided to join…
Reality TV Show Contracts
By Eric Goldman I’ve blogged about the Apprentice TV show before. See, e.g., this post about product placement on the Apprentice. At ContractsProf blog, where I’m doing some occasional blogging, I critique the Apprentice’s participant contract clause imposing a $5M…
Spyware Litigation Recap
By Eric Goldman There’s been an explosion of litigation involving spyware/adware–so much that I’ve not been able to blog it all on a timely basis. This post “catches up” some of the lawsuits from the last couple of months. In…
Yahoo Wins Online Harassment Case Under 47 USC 230
By Eric Goldman Barnes v. Yahoo, 2005 WL 3005602 (D. Or. Nov. 8, 2005) Barnes claimed that her ex-boyfriend harassed her by creating Yahoo user profiles containing nude photos of her plus her contact info. Barnes also claimed that her…
Yale “Regulating Search?” Symposium
By Eric Goldman On December 3, Yale is sponsoring a symposium on regulating search engines. Although search engine issues have come up at plenty of other symposia, I think this is the first major law school symposium dedicated to the…
Gonzales Seeks Harsher Criminal Copyright Infringement Standards
By Eric Goldman CNET reports that Atty. Gen. Gonzales has proposed new amendments to criminal copyright infringement, including: * criminalizing the “attempt” to infringe * requiring criminal defendants to pay “other victims of the offense” in addition to the copyright…
Google Launches Affiliate Programs
By Eric Goldman Google has launched 2 new affiliate programs. The first pays $100 for referring a new AdSense publisher who generates $100 in AdSense earnings. The second pays $1 for each new FireFox install containing the Google Toolbar. When…
Keyword Lawsuit Between Office Depot and Staples
By Eric Goldman Office Depot, Inc. v. Staples, Inc., No. 05-80901 (S.D. Fla. complaint filed Oct. 4, 2005 and answer/counterclaims filed Oct. 18, 2005). The WSJ picked up this story a few weeks ago, but I finally got my hands…
Amazon Pages and Google Library’s Fair Use Defense
By Eric Goldman I’m intrigued by Amazon’s and Random House’s introduction of a pay-per-book-page feature (Amazon is calling its feature “Amazon Pages”). From a legal standpoint, I wonder: will this announcement have any effect on Google’s fair use arguments for…
Is Sony’s DRM Spyware?
By Eric Goldman Sony’s DRM software generated lots of discussion and new information since my last post on the subject. The discussion (especially the many great comments I got in response to my previous post) has prompted me to change…