First Amendment Protects Videogame’s Depiction of Tractor’s Trade Dress–Saber v. Oovee
This case involves the Polish tractor manufacturer Kirovets’ K-700 tractor: Saber makes the videogame MudRunner. It exclusively licensed the right to depict the K-700 in its videogames, including the right to enforce the exclusive license in court. Oovee make the…
Uber Defeats Driver’s Wrongful Death Lawsuit–Drammeh v. Uber
Ceesay, an Uber driver, picked up 2 passengers who allegedly murdered him so they could steal his car. A story about the tragedy. The passengers allegedly created a “fake” Uber account using a prepaid cellphone and gift cards. The estate…
Muslim Loses Case Against Facebook Over Discriminatory Content Moderation–Elansari v. Meta
Elansari is Muslim. This is not his first time as a plaintiff. In this lawsuit, he claims that Facebook blocks pro-Palestinian publishers and favors pro-Israeli publishers. Thus, he argues, Jewish readers are more likely to get the information they want…
The 5th Circuit Puts the 1st Amendment in a Blender & Whips Up a Terrible #MAGA Kool-Aid–NetChoice v. Paxton
[This is a 6k+ word blog post that was joyless to write and most likely will be joyless to read.] If you want a distillation of this decision, consider this line: “Far from justifying pre-enforcement facial invalidation, the Platforms’ obsession…
Five Ways That the California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC/AB 2273) Is Radical Policy
When a proposed new law is sold as “protecting kids online,” regulators and commenters often accept the sponsors’ claims uncritically (because…kids). This is unfortunate because those bills can harbor ill-advised policy ideas. The California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC / AB2273,…
Some Memes About California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (AB 2273)
Today, I’m continuing my coverage of CA AADC (AB 2273) with a few memes on the subject: * * * * * * * * * My caption: “CAPTCHA vendors are training their age assurance algorithms for CA’s Age Appropriate…
Reminder: the First Amendment Governs Content Moderation by the Government–PETA v. Banks
Texas A&M (TAMU) does medical experiments on dogs. PETA objects to these experiments and commented on TAMU’s social media pages. TAMU blocked PETA, which led to a prior lawsuit that settled. The settlement terms included: “TAMU would not exercise viewpoint…
Griper’s Keyword Ads May Constitute False Advertising (Huh?)–LoanStreet v. Troia
Troia was a LoanStreet employee. He was allegedly fired for cause. Troia posted disparaging comments about LoanStreet at Glassdoor.com, Reddit.com, and Teamblind.com. He then worked to boost the posts’ visibility, including: the posts asked users to “follow [his] link and…
Section 230 Protect Apple’s App Store from Claims Over Cryptocurrency Theft–Diep v. Apple
This lawsuit relates to the “Toast Plus” app that was available in Apple’s app store. The plaintiffs claim it was a spoof app designed to steal cryptocurrency worth $5k in Diep’s case and $500k in Nagao’s case (ouch). The plaintiffs’…
An Interview Regarding AB 2273/the California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC)
I did a media interview regarding AB 2273 that I thought was worth sharing here. For more on the bill, see my prior coverage: Op-ed Explainer Deep dive Can the existing UK Age-Appropriate Design Code tell us anything about what…