Court Definitively Rejects AFP’s Argument That Posting a Photo to Twitter Grants AFP a License to Freely Use It — AFP v. Morel

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] AFP v. Morel, 10 Civ. 02730 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 14, 2013) The court *finally* issued its ruling on the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment in AFP v. Morel, the Haiti photo case. Previous posts here and…

Top Ten Internet Law Developments of 2012 (Forbes Cross-Post)

By Eric Goldman I’m pleased to share my list of top 10 developments of 2012: #10: The Push Towards Anti-Class Action Arbitration Clauses.  In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion that businesses may be able to adopt mandatory…

Q4 2012 Quick Links, Part 3 (47 USC 230 and more)

By Eric Goldman 47 USC 230/Review Websites * Sulla v. Horowitz, 2012 WL 4758163 (D. Hawai’i Oct. 4, 2012): “§ 230 does not provide this court with exclusive jurisdiction over defamation claims arising from statements made via the internet….While a…

Section 230 Still Keeping the Pro Se Plaintiffs at Bay–Klayman v. Facebook, and More

By Eric Goldman I’m personally committed to blogging every Section 230 case I see, but I fell off the wagon in the second half of 2012. So what better way to usher out 2012 and ring in the new year…

Court Dismisses Class Action Against Apple Over Its App Developers’ Information Collection Practices – Pirozzi v. Apple

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with comments from Eric] Pirozzi v. Apple, 2012 WL 6652453 (N.D. Cal.; Dec. 20, 2012) This is one of several putative class actions over the information collection practices of apps. I previously covered how the lawsuit…

Bit-Torrent Copyright Litigation Updates, and a Potentially Significant Decision on Joinder

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] We don’t track the numerous mass file sharing cases going on around the country. There are too many of them, and it’s not easy to glean any sort of a clear trend. But here are a…

Amazon Not Liable for Affiliates’ Allegedly Bad Acts–Routt v. Amazon

By Eric Goldman Routt v. Amazon.com, Inc., C12-1307JLR (W.D. Wash. Nov. 30, 2012) Sandy Routt is an artist (check out SandysBeachGifts.com if you care). She claims that Amazon affiliates (called “associates” in Amazon’s vernacular) displayed her copyrighted photos (product shots)…

Expert Report on the Value of Consumer Review Websites and 47 USC 230

By Eric Goldman [Eric’s note: most expert reports in litigation never see the light of day. Naturally, this collides with my blogger’s ethos of leaving no thought unpublished. As a result, after preparing this expert report regarding the social value…

AmeriGas Gives Up Its Lawsuit Against PissedConsumer

By Eric Goldman AmeriGas and Opinion Corp. (PissedConsumer) have settled their case. Law360 report. My prior blog post on a preliminary ruling in this case. I blog about settlements only occasionally, but I thought this settlement was interesting for two…

Intellectual Property on the Internet: A Brief Comparison of the Current Situation in Europe and the United States (Guest Blog Post)

by Guest Blogger Pablo García Mexía, J.D., Ph.D [Visiting Professor of Internet Law, The College of William & Mary. English translation by Morgan G. Fletcher, B.A. Cornell, William & Mary Law School, Class of 2014. The original Spanish version of…

Visit Full Blog