Contract Breach Claims Against Google Survive First Amendment Defense–Dreamstime v. Google
Dreamstime sells stock photos. It alleges that Google partnered with its competitors and then maliciously downgraded Dreamstime’s visibility, first in organic search results and then in keyword ads. Google allegedly also kicked Dreamstime’s app out of Google Play. Dreamstime sued…
Terminated AdSense Publishers Can’t Get Their Accrued Earnings–eOnline v. Google
The plaintiffs are publishers that participated in the Google AdSense program. They outsourced much of their content development to a service called TextBroker that pays authors between 0.7 and 5 cents per word (i.e., a 1000 word article makes between…
Section 230 Protects Facebook’s Account and Content Restriction Decisions–Ebeid v. Facebook
Courts, at least in the Ninth Circuit, have collapsed the distinction between Sections 230(c)(1) and 230(c)(2). As a result, (c)(1) now routinely protects a service’s content filtering and account restriction decisions, which is nominally the job of (c)(2). This is…
Ex-Employee’s Continued Use of Twitter Account May Be Conversion–Farm Journal v. Johnson
This is another ownership dispute over a Twitter account. We last blogged this topic several years ago, and none of the disputes we’ve seen have resulted in any definitive rulings. Plaintiff publishes trade publications in the agricultural sector, including “The…
Photographer Sues for Failure to Provide Creative Commons-Required Attribution–Philpot v. WOS
“Philpot has been a professional photographer, in his view, since 2008.” (“in his view” = ouch). He has not found financial success. For example, “he once earned $0.88 for an image of Prince that he took at a concert he…
Forming an Online Contract May Be Harder Than Tough Mudder’s Salmon Ladder
This case reaches a relatively non-controversial outcome. It rejects an arbitration clause in an online TOS. Still, how the court reaches that conclusion should set off warning bells for everyone trying to impose arbitration in an online TOS. The bar…
More Kardashian Drama: A Legal Fight Over Ownership of the Kimoji Emoji Set–Liebensohn v. Kardashian (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Gabriella Ziccarelli [Eric’s introductory note: I have made a personal life choice to ignore the entire Kardashian enterprise and their constant and often faux drama (except that I have occasionally mocked the Kardashians in my law school…
Twitter Defeats Yet Another Lawsuit from a Suspended User–Cox v. Twitter
Cox alleged tweeted: “Islam is a Philosophy of Conquests wrapped in Religious Fantasy & uses Racism, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Mutilation, Torture, Authoritarianism, Homicide, Rape . . . Peaceful Muslims are Marginal Muslims who are Heretics & Hypocrites to Islam. Islam is…
Unhappy AdWords Advertiser’s Lawsuit Partially Survives Motion to Dismiss–Dreamstime v. Google
Dreamstime sells stock photos. It started running Google AdWords in 2004. In 2015, Google organic (?) referrals to Dreamstime “plummeted,” allegedly reducing its number of new customers by 30% in a year. (The opinion isn’t crystal-clear that the traffic drop was…
An Analysis of Title I and Title III of The Music Modernization Act, Part 2 of 2 (Guest Blog Post)
Guest Blog Post by Tyler Ochoa [This is part 2 of a 2-part series on the Music Modernization Act. Check out part 1 before reading this post.] The Musical Works Database One of the most important provisions in the MWM…