2021 Emoji Law Year-in-Review
A recap of emoji law developments in 2021: Court References I maintain a dataset of US court opinions that reference emojis and emoticons. I have compiled the dataset using keyword alerts in Westlaw and Lexis, supplemented by a few opinions…
Twitter Can’t Quash a 512(h) Subpoena
This case involves the Twitter account “@CallMeMoneyBags,” a pseudonymous account. In October 2020, the user posted 6 tweets attacking Brian Sheth, a private equity billionaire, that included photos “depicting a woman or portions of a woman’s body.” The opinion doesn’t…
Comments on the Copyright Office’s Copyright Claims Board Rulemaking
A year ago, at the nadir of the Trump era, Congress attached the CASE Act to an unrelated must-pass bill and authorized a new “small claims court” for copyright owners (called the Copyright Claims Board, or CCB) housed in the…
Evidentiary Issues With Emojis
[I did an interview for a student research project on emojis as evidence, which I’m sharing here.] Tell us a little bit about yourself! What do you work with today? What’s your background and how did you get the role…
Peloton Can’t Bind All Family Members To Its Arbitration Provision–SS v. Peloton
This case involves the Peloton treadmill (“Tread+”). The treadmill has caused numerous personal injuries, and Peloton has recalled it. In this case, a 3 year old boy suffered personal injuries due to a Tread+ his dad bought. The dad, mom,…
My Declaration Identifying Emoji Co. GmbH as a Possible Trademark Troll
There are dozens of federal lawsuits captioned “Emoji Company GmbH v. The Individuals, Corporations, Limited Liability Companies, Partnerships, and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule A Hereto.” Last month, in one of them, I filed a declaration stating that “Emojico appears…
A Roundup of German Caselaw Regarding Emojis and Emoticons (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Dr. Matthias Pendl, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law Introduction Emoji are a worldwide phenomenon in modern communication, and so unsurprisingly emoji cases are popping up in Germany as well. Although the number of published…
Emoji Version Variations Help Identify Fabricated Evidence–Rossbach v. Montefiore Medical
Rossbach worked at Montefiore Medical Center. She claims her supervisor sexually harassed her and then the center retaliated against her. This screenshot is the evidentiary centerpiece of her claim: The last line is the court’s: “This image is a fabrication.”…
There Are Multiple Types of “Clickwrap.” They Should All Be Enforceable–Calderon v. Sixt
This case involves rental car contracts. Typically, a rental car company can form a contract at three different times: when making an online reservation, when actually completing the reservation in person (nowadays, usually it’s an electronic signature on a point-of-sale…
Blogger Loses Copyright Ruling Over Photo…But No Mention of the CC-BY-SA License!–Von Der Au v. Imber
Von Der Au is a professional photographer. The photographer took a photo of the Semperoper opera house in Dresden, Germany. The defendant blogs at MichaelGImberBlog.com and republished the photo in a post. The court claims the “value of a license…