City of Heroes Lawsuit–New Ruling on False DMCA Takedown Notices
By Eric Goldman Marvel Enterprises v. NCSoft Corp., CV 04-9253-RGK (C.D. Cal. Aug. 23, 2005). Given the interest in this case, I’m surprised that this ruling appears to have been overlooked (I found it through BNA [subscription required]). In late…
Lane’s Gifts Click Fraud Lawsuit Back to State Court
By Eric Goldman Quick update on the Lane’s Gifts class action lawsuit over click fraud. The Eighth Circuit refused to hear an appeal of the federal court determination that the lawsuit should be remanded back to state court, so the…
Specht v. Netscape–What Happened After the 2nd Circuit Remand?
By Eric Goldman (with help from Matt Goeden) The Specht v. Netscape 2nd Circuit opinion is a modern classic. The case articulates a clean (and, in my opinion, sensible) rule about online contract formation. I think it’s a great teaching…
Details on Marquette’s Participation in BSA’s “Define the Line” Program
By Eric Goldman Back in May, I blogged about Marquette being the first participant in the Business Software Association’s “Define the Line” campaign against on-campus copyright infringement. The details were sketchy, but the Marquette Tribune student paper ran an article…
Madison on Drafting Local Court Rules for Patent Cases
By Eric Goldman Michael Madison gives an interesting account of his experiences drafting local court rules for patent cases. While the idea of creating some incentives for parties to engage in forum-shopping may sound good in theory, I wonder how…
GEICO and Google Settle
By Eric Goldman Reuters reports that GEICO and Google have settled their lawsuit. This development isn’t particularly surprising given that the judge practically ordered them to settle. The terms of the settlement are confidential, so we can only speculate what…
The FCC Proclaims Itself the UDRP for 800 Numbers
By Eric Goldman From Kevin Poulson’s Wired story: An entrepreneur registers 800-RED-CROS[S]. He claims to have done so because it has the same number as 800-RED-ARMS, and he was running a business by that name at the time. When he…
Rappers, Car Dealer Ads, and Expansive Interpretations of Trademark Law
By Eric Goldman Broadus v. Gary Barbera Enterprises, Inc. (E.D. Pa. complaint filed Aug. 2005). Ten days ago I blogged about the rapper 50 Cent’s lawsuit against the Gary Barbera dealership for running a car ad that showed a picture…
Student Sues Term Paper Website (and its Host)
Macellari v. Carroll, no. 4:05-CV-04161-JPG (S.D. Ill. complaint filed Aug. 31, 2005). Blue Macellari, a student at Duke and Johns Hopkins, has sued a term paper vendor (Rusty Carroll/R2C2, Inc.) operating three websites (doingmyhomework.com, freeforessays.com and freefortermpapers.com) for copyright infringement,…
Downloading Software onto Home Computer May Be Trespass to Chattels–Sotelo v. DirectRevenue
Sotelo v. DirectRevenue LLC, No. 05 C 2562 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 29, 2005). It was pretty obvious when the complaint was filed in March that this lawsuit warranted careful scrutiny. This initial ruling reinforces that point. This ruling is interesting…