Recapping Three Social Media Addiction Opinions from Fall (Catch-Up Post)
The Northern District of California issued three opinions, totaling over 150 pages, in rapid succession over 3 weeks last Fall. The opinions came out faster than I could blog them. I’m not going to comprehensively blog each of the opinions,…
“Volitional Conduct” Doctrine Helps DistroKid Defeat Copyright Infringement Claim–White v. DistroKid
White created “beats” and got copyright registrations for them. He orally licensed the beats to Rivers for a 50% royalty and a promise to keep booking live performances for White. Rivers incorporated the beats into her album. White alleges that…
Section 230 Immunizes OnlyFans for User-Uploaded Video (Again)–Doe v. Fenix
A prior ruling summarized the facts the court describes as “harrowing”: In April 2022, Defendant Bendjy Charles (“Charles”) and Romelus raped Plaintiff. Charles and Romelus filmed each other while they raped Plaintiff. Romelus subsequently uploaded video footage of Romelus and…
Section 230 Still Works in the Fourth Circuit (For Now)–M.P. v. Meta
I’m going to classify this ruling as a “big deal,” with the crucial caveat that Section 230 is still doomed and this ruling doesn’t reverse that. Given how judges have turned against Section 230, at this point any appellate ruling…
Section 230 Protects Newspaper’s Removal of User Comments–Affleck v. Harvard Crimson
Here’s a twist. The plaintiff in this case, Jonathan Affleck, was the plaintiff in Martillo v. Twitter, but he sued then under a nom de plume. The court issues him a chastising warning against using unauthorized pseudonyms. In this case,…
Glassdoor Partially Fixes a Bad Section 230 Ruling–Nicholas Services v. Glassdoor
This case involves two interrelated companies in the private jet industry. One entity (Nicholas Air) was the public brand. The other entity (Corr Flight) provided all of the staffing to the public brand. Employees from the staffing company posted negative…
512(c) Helps Vimeo Defeat the Record Labels. It Only Took 15 Years–Capitol v. Vimeo
This case is a throwback in every way. We rarely see lengthy (this one clocks in at 46 pages), detailed, and philosophical Section 512(c) opinions any more, and we only get this one because of the case’s extreme age. Capitol…
2024 Internet Law Year-in-Review
My ranking of the top 10 Internet Law developments of 2024. 10) X/Twitter Embraces Partisan Bias. For years, MAGA has claimed that Internet company employees are liberals and therefore surely moderate content to favor their preferred team (the Democrats) and…
California’s “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act” Is Partially Unconstitutional…But Other Parts Are Green-Lighted–NetChoice v. Bonta
California SB 976, “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act,” is one of the multitudinous laws that pretextually claim to protect kids online. Like many such laws nowadays, it’s a gish-gallop compendium of online censorship ideas: Age authentication! Parental…
The Fifth Circuit’s Campaign to Undermine Section 230 Is Making Progress–AB v. Salesforce
This is a FOSTA case involving Backpage, but it’s against Backpage’s vendor Salesforce. That makes this a tertiary liability claim. Here are the steps in the plaintiffs’ alleged chain of liability: V) victims promoted in Backpage advertisements (plaintiffs) –> D1)…