More Evidence That Print-on-Demand Vendors May Be Doomed–Greg Young Publishing v. Zazzle
I’ve repeatedly expressed concern for the viability of print-on-demand vendors due to potentially unmanageable IP liability. Unlike other Internet services, print-on-demand vendors do not get the full benefit of 512(c) because of their offline printing and shipping activities. Without 512(c),…
Rehearing Briefs in Enigma Software v. Malwarebytes
In September, in Enigma v. Malwarebytes, the Ninth Circuit issued a troubling Section 230(c)(2)(B) ruling that allowed plaintiffs’ allegations of anti-competitive animus to override the safe harbor for anti-threat software vendors. It was a 2-1 ruling on a key topic,…
Section 230 Helps Salesforce Defeat Sex Trafficking Lawsuit–Doe v. Salesforce
Salesforce provided SaaS services to Backpage. On that basis, the plaintiffs sought to hold Salesforce liable for any Backpage-caused sex trafficking victimization. This represents an attempt (possibly unprecedented) to impose tertiary liability for sex trafficking. The advertisers, such as pimps,…
State Court Rejects Prager University’s Lawsuit Against YouTube
Prager University publishes videos on YouTube. YouTube demonetized some of its videos and placed some in “restricted mode,” meaning that users of YouTube’s restricted mode functionality won’t see them. Prager claimed that YouTube took these steps due to anti-conservative bias,…
Internet Access Provider May Be Vicariously Liable for Subscribers’ BitTorrent Downloads–Warner Bros. v. Charter
This is another copyright infringement lawsuit against an Internet access provider for subscribers’ allegedly infringing P2P file sharing activity. It extends the copyright owners’ successes in two similar lawsuits, BMG v. Cox and UMG v. Grande. In this ruling, the…
Roundup of the House Commerce Committee Hearing on Section 230
Yesterday, the House Energy & Commerce Committee (the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce) held a hearing called “Fostering a Healthier Internet to Protect Consumers.” The hearing page. This post rounds up some…
The PLAN Act Proposes to Amend Section 230 to “Protect”…Landlords and Hotel Chains?
This is my third time in 2019 blogging proposed Section 230 amendments. The other two bills, from Sen. Hawley and Rep. Gosar, propose structural reforms to Section 230–to mandate political neutrality and ban any content moderation not required by law,…
Top Myths About Content Moderation
How Internet companies decide which user-submitted content to keep and which to remove—a process called “content moderation”—is getting lots of attention lately, for good reason. Under-moderation can lead to major social problems, like foreign agents manipulating our elections. Over-moderation can…
New Paper Explains Why Technologists Should Rally Behind Section 230
At the request of James Grimmelmann, and with his editorial support, I wrote an essay for the Communications of the ACM called “Internet Immunity and the Freedom to Code.” The abstract: The Internet’s freedom to code is in jeopardy. In…
Section 230 Helps Tumblr Defeat Nonconsensual Pornography Suit–Poole v. Tumblr
This ruling came out in March, but it just showed up in my Westlaw alerts. I don’t know why it was delayed over 6 months. The opinion is topical and clear, so I thought it’s still worth blogging now. This…