Salesforce Still Can’t Avoid Tertiary Liability FOSTA Claims–GG v. Salesforce
This is one of numerous FOSTA cases seeking to hold Salesforce liable for providing vendor services to Backpage. I describe these as “tertiary liability” cases because Salesforce’s involvement is three hops away from the victim: sex trafficking victim <== Backpage…
Copyright Takedown Notices Don’t Require Services to Find and Remove Other Identical Copies–Athos v. YouTube
I previously summarized this case: 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…
DMCA 512(c) Safe Harbor Applies to Embedding–Harrington v. Pinterest
This is a long-running class action copyright case (filed in 2020!) led by the photographer Blaine Harrington (now deceased). The plaintiffs complain about user-uploaded photos appearing in Pinterest’s off-website notifications to its users (e.g., email, in-app, and mobile push). This…
2025 Internet Law Year-in-Review
2025 is the Trump 2.0 era, so you won’t find much upbeat news in this Internet Law year-in-review. 10. Are Websites Legally Equivalent to Exploding Coke Bottles? Traditionally, tort law distinguishes between tangible items (chattels) and intangible services. Several doctrines…
A Massive Roundup of Section 230 Decisions
This post also owes its origins to my 2-week trip to China in June. Section 230 decisions started backing up while I was on the trip and never stopped accruing. In total, this post covers about 30 decisions in 7k+…
Too Many Courts Are Letting States Take Wrecking Balls to the Internet (Roundup)
‘Tis the season for Internet censorship. 🎄 More accurately, Internet censorship is now a four-season sport in state legislatures. There is not a stereotypical red state/blue state divide. Instead, the “divide” is between pro-censorship and anti-censorship legislators. You can count…
Google Can Assert a DMCA 512(d) Defense–Cengage v. Google (Catch-Up Post)
Textbook publishers are suing Google for its alleged role in facilitating what they consider to be mass piracy. In June 2025, the court partially denied Google’s motion to dismiss. Still remaining in the case are the plaintiffs’ contributory copyright infringement…
District Court Again Rejects Plaintiffs’ Attempts to Manufacture Common Law Notice-and-Takedown Duties–Bogard v. TikTok
This is a quirky lawsuit designed to subvert Section 230, the First Amendment, and traditional common law. I previously summarized the case: This lawsuit purports to focuses on the allegedly defective operation of the services’ reporting tools, but the plaintiffs’…
Courts Enjoin Internet Censorship Laws in Louisana and Arkansas
[I have a mondo draft roundup blog post, coming soon, covering a lot of segregate-and-suppress rulings. For now, I’ve prioritized coverage of these two rulings due to their importance. I’ll discuss the Louisiana law first, then the Arkansas law. Warning:…
OnlyFans Defeats “Chatter Scam” Claim–N.Z. v. Fenix
The court summarizes the plaintiffs’ “chatter scam” contentions: Plaintiffs allege that Fenix Defendants, in cooperation with the Agency Defendants, operate a fraudulent scheme whereby Fenix Defendants charge OnlyFans subscribers to communicate directly with creators, purport to connect subscribers with creators,…