Walmart Foundation Uses Copyright to Curtail Griper
The Walmart Foundation has gone after the gripe site “walmart-foundation.org” using 512(c)(3) notices to take down images that the griper took from walmartfoundation.org. A few observations about this: * copyright is an extremely effective tool against gripers. Using a 512(c)(3)…
Grokster Oral Arguments
If you haven’t seen it elsewhere, the transcript from the oral arguments in Grokster.
Talk on 47 USC 230 at Michigan State
I’m going to be talking tomorrow about derivative liability at a conference at Michigan State University Law School. You can see a preview of my talk. Unquestionably, my perspective is colored by my experiences at Epinions!
German Meta-Search Engine May Be Liable for Defamation
Einstmann v. Sharelook Beteiligungen GmbH, LG Berlin, No. 27 O 45/05, 2/22/05. Sorry I’m a little late in picking this up, but a German court has held that a meta-search engine could be liable for defamation. According to the news…
ACLU Considering Challenge to Utah Anti-Internet Porn Law
The ACLU of Utah is considering a constitutional challenge against Utah’s most-recent anti-Internet porn law. Despite Rep. Dougall’s defensiveness, this law is almost certainly unconstitutional, and I’m confident that it will be struck down when scrutinized by the courts. We…
Liability for Labeling Software as Spyware
Ben Edelman’s latest research describes various efforts by software vendors to curtail characterizations of their software as spyware (or a synonym). These bigfoot letters often attempt to distort the information marketplace by forcing the removal of unflattering but potentially accurate…
Who Gets Indexed in Google News?
I still have no idea how Google decides which news sources are among the 4,500 indexed in Google News. Google News’ FAQ has the following: “What if I don’t see my favorite news source in Google News? We’re as shocked…
Utah Amends Spyware Control Act
Last week, the Utah governor signed HB 104, the amendment to Utah’s Spyware Control Act. The amendment is, in fact, a nearly complete rewrite of the prior law. I blogged on the proposed law last month, and since then further…
Utah Governor Signs HB 260
Not a surprise, but today the Utah governor signed HB 260, the ridiculous Internet service provider-as-filterer law. See my earlier critique (I think there are other objectionable aspects of the bill; I tried to control myself). Anyone want to make…
Batzel v. Smith Dismissal
Politech reports that Batzel v. Smith has been dismissed for procedural reasons. See multi-page TIFF here (I had problems viewing this with my browser–if anyone has a cleaner version, please advise). UPDATE: Evan Brown of InternetCases.com converted the TIFF to…