Kozinski and Goldfoot on Cyberspace Exceptionalism and Internet Regulation
By Eric Goldman Alex Kozinski & Josh Goldfoot, A Declaration of the Dependence of Cyberspace, 32 Colum. J.L. & Arts 365 (2009). Introduction In early 1996, in response to Congress’ enactment of the Communications Decency Act (the first comprehensive attempt…
January 2010 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Copyright * An English translation of Google’s December loss in France on a Google Book Search lawsuit. * Ed Felten reports on a survey of files available via BitTorrent. Acknowledging some methodological limits, he estimates ~99% were…
Top Cyberlaw Developments of 2009 (Eric’s List)
By Eric Goldman Guest blogger John Ottaviani recently dropped by to offer his perspectives on 2009’s top Cyberlaw developments. While I like his list a lot, I independently developed my own top 10 list that has a different emphasis. You…
47 USC 230 Year-in-Review for 2009
By Eric Goldman I will do a more comprehensive year in review for Cyberlaw generally, but I thought it would be fun to take a close look at how 47 USC 230 fared in 2009. This is the first full…
Terminated eBay Vendor Gets Day in Court Against eBay–Crawford v. Consumer Depot
By Eric Goldman Crawford v. Consumer Depot, Inc., 05-3242 (Tenn. County Ct. Dec. 9, 2009) Essex and Consumer Depot are competitors in the eBay consignment business. According to the court, prior to 2005 Essex used to allow its employees to…
512(f) Claim Dismissed on Jurisdictional Grounds–Project DoD v. Federici
By Eric Goldman Project DOD, Inc. v. Federici, 2009 WL 4910320 (D. Me. Dec. 13, 2009) 17 USC 512(f) creates a cause of action for sending bogus copyright takedown notices. In a regulatory environment where service providers have itchy trigger…
Torrent Sites Induce Infringement and Lose DMCA Safe Harbor–Columbia v. Fung
By Eric Goldman Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., v. Fung, 2:06-cv-05578-SVW-JC (C.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2009) In a potentially significant ruling that got a little lost in the Christmas rush, a federal district court ruled on summary judgment that the “torrent…
Consumer Review Website Wins 230 Dismissal in Fourth Circuit–Nemet Chevrolet v. ConsumerAffairs.com
By Eric Goldman Nemet Chevrolet Ltd. v. ConsumerAffairs.com, Inc., 2009 WL 5126224 (4th Cir. Dec. 29, 2009) Introduction Citing 47 USC 230, today the Fourth Circuit upheld a 12(b)(6) dismissal of defamation and related claims against a consumer review website….
November-December 2009 Quick Links, Part 1
By Eric Goldman Trademarks/Domain Names * Yahoo and Mary Kay settled Mary Kay’s trademark lawsuit over Yahoo’s email shortcuts. * uBID Inc. v. The GoDaddy Group Inc., No. 09-cv-2123 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 5, 2009). uBid’s anti-domain name parking lawsuit failed…
Ripoff Report Not Bound by Takedown Injunction Against User–Blockowicz v. Williams
By Eric Goldman Blockowicz v. Williams, 1:09-cv-03955 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 21, 2009) Last month, I wrote about the interaction between 47 USC 230 and FRCP 65. FRCP 65 says that anyone acting in concert with a litigant is obligated to…