To Geoblock, or Not To Geoblock – Is That Still a Question? (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Marketa Trimble Should your client – an internet content provider or service provider – geoblock? Your client might geolocate – that is, it might determine an internet user’s physical location and then localize content to adjust the…
New Draft Paper on Emojis and the Law
I have posted a draft article, entitled Surveying the Law of Emojis, to SSRN. I will be posting excerpts from the article here over the next few weeks. I would gratefully appreciate your comments on the draft. I am also…
A Photographer Sued a (Former) Student Over a School Project. Guess How That Turned Out–Reiner v. Nishimori
In 1997, TC Reiner worked with SuperStock to create a photo entitled “Casablanca.” If I understand it correctly, Reiner and SuperStock put significant time and money into creating the photo on spec, with the hope that a future advertiser would…
New Essay: Understanding the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016
I’ve posted a new essay, Understanding the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016, to SSRN. It will be published later this year in the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review (MTTLR). I trust most of you already know about the…
Revisiting If Suing Bloggers For Copyright Infringement Can Be Profitable–BWP v. Mishka
Ever since the Righthaven debacle, I’ve been wondering about the profitability of copyright enforcement actions against bloggers. Bloggers aren’t the deepest pockets, and numerous copyright doctrines make wins and big judgments expensive and unlikely, plus a single 505 fee shift…
Copyshop Covered By “Non-Commercial” Creative Commons License–Great Minds v. FedEx
Great Minds developed a math curriculum called Eureka Math. It commercializes the Eureka Math materials itself but also released the materials pursuant to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike (CC BY-NC-SA) 4.0 license. Great Minds discovered at least two circumstances where school…
Copyright Office Q&A Session About The New Online DMCA Designated Agents Directory
By guest blogger Franklin Graves Last week, at the ABA’s Midyear Meeting in Miami, Florida, the Section of Intellectual Property Law’s Computer Program & New Technologies Committee hosted a Q&A event with the U.S. Copyright Office to discuss the new online DMCA Designated…
Actress in Viral Video Can’t Prevent Video From Being Made Into an Advertisement–Roberts v. Bliss
Bliss produced a viral video called “10 Hours Walking in NYC as a Woman” featuring actress Shoshana Roberts. You probably saw this video when it came out; it has been viewed over 40M times. The video shows how random strangers…
Top 10 Internet Law Developments of 2016
Donald Trump’s election as president pretty much dominated our thoughts about 2016 (though Brexit was pretty significant too). So I decided to break up my annual top 10 list into two separate top 5 lists, one election-related, one not. Top…
A Seismic Ruling Revisited: No Common-Law Public Performance Rights in Pre-1972 Sound Recordings in New York–Flo & Eddie v. Sirius
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa On December 20, 2016, the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in the State of New York) held 4-2 (with one judge recused) that “New York common-law copyright does not recognize a right…