An E-Commerce Site Tried to Form Its TOS Three Different Ways. None of Them Worked–Chabolla v. ClassPass
The plaintiffs claim they signed up for a ClassPass membership but got unexpectedly auto-renewed. (ClassPass appears to be an aggregator of third-party fitness classes). ClassPass sought to send the case to arbitration based on its TOS, which it attempted to…
Contractual Control over Information Goods after ML Genius v. Google (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Prof. Guy Rub, The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law The copyright – contract tension Stewart Brand famously said that information wants to be free. We know, however, that many laws limit free access…
Reddit Defeats Lawsuit Over Removal of r/WallStreetBets Moderator’s Privileges–Rogozinski v. Reddit
Jaime Rogozinski, a/k/a “jartek,” created the r/WallStreetBets subreddit, which became notorious for (among other lowlights) its role as a venue for hyping meme stocks like Gamestop. Rogozinski sought a trademark registration for the term “WallStreetBets” and published a book with…
A Thumbs-Up Emoji Costs a Canadian Seller $82,000–South West Terminal v. Achter Land
[A special post for my Canadian friends as a belated celebration of Canada Day. 🍁] [DEC. 2024 UPDATE: see the appellate decision in this case.] This case involves a Canadian transaction for flax. The court summarizes: Mr. Mickleborough had a…
California’s Proposed Fix to the Journalism Crisis Is Unconstitutional and Worse Than Socialism (Comments on the California Journalism Protection Act, CJPA)
The California legislature is competing with states like Florida and Texas to see who can pass laws will be more devastating to the Internet. California’s latest entry into this Internet death-spiral is the California Journalism Protection Act (CJPA, AB 886)….
How Can AI Models Legally Obtain Training Data?–Doe 1 v. GitHub (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Doe 1 v. GitHub, Inc. is one of the first major class-action lawsuits to dive into questions of online collection of “public data” and generative AI training data sets. Given the importance of generative AI…
Class Certification Denied Over Rightsowners’ Demands for Content ID Access–Schneider v. YouTube
The court summarizes the case: “plaintiffs allege that YouTube has violated the copyright laws by withholding broad access to Content ID….Plaintiffs also allege that YouTube automatically strips metadata out of uploaded videos, including copyright management information (CMI), which makes it…
Amazon Screws Up Its TOS Amendments (Again)–Jackson v. Amazon
This case involves “Amazon Flex” drivers. Allegedly, “Amazon monitored and wiretapped the drivers’ conversations when they communicated during off hours in closed Facebook groups.” Amazon claimed its TOS mandated arbitration. The Ninth Circuit disagrees. At issue are two versions of…
Microsoft Can Terminate User Account for Allegedly Possessing CSAM. But What If It Made a Mistake?–Deutsch v. Microsoft
The plaintiff (a NY lawyer/financial executive?) allegedly uploaded CSAM to his Microsoft OneDrive folder in violation of Microsoft’s “Code of Conduct.” [Nomenclature note: CSAM is what used to be called child porn; the case calls it CSEAI]. Allegedly, PhotoDNA detected…
Do Mandatory Age Verification Laws Conflict with Biometric Privacy Laws?–Kuklinski v. Binance
California passed the California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) nominally to protect children’s privacy, but at the same time, the AADC requires businesses to do an age “assurance” of all their users, children and adults alike. (Age “assurance” requires the business…