Trump Lost the Trump Tapes Ruling, But Could He Still Prevail? (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Tim McFarlin Is the Trump Tapes suit truly over? It’s been dismissed, but not without leave to move to amend for a third time. Would another amended complaint stand a chance? This question is why I’ve accepted…
Trump’s Lawsuit Over The Trump Tapes is Dismissed (Trump v. Simon & Schuster) — Guest Blog Post
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa [UPDATE: for bonus coverage, see Prof. McFarlin’s supplement to this post.] Last week, a federal judge in New York dismissed a lawsuit filed two-and-a-half years ago by then-former President Donald Trump against journalist Bob Woodward…
Rounding Up Three Recent Section 230 Decisions
I’m trying to clear my blogging queue that backlogged during my China trip. Here are three Section 230 decisions from the last few weeks. Geegieh v. Unknown Parties, 2025 WL 1769766 (D. Ariz. June 26, 2025) The plaintiff claims that…
Reddit Defeats Lawsuit Over WallStreetBets Subreddit–Rogozinski v. Reddit
This is one of those oh-so-stupid hard-eyerolling lawsuits that I blog for coverage purposes, but I blog it joylessly and with annoyance at the wasted time. I previously summarized this case: Jaime Rogozinski, a/k/a “jartek,” created the r/WallStreetBets subreddit, which…
Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over Online Review of a Chicago Dater–D’Ambrosio v. Rajala
The plaintiff in this case is Nikko D’Ambrosio. He recently served time in prison for tax issues. Separately, he brought a lawsuit over the “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” Facebook group, run by Spill the Tea, “where women can…
Does IP Law Protect Influencers’ Aesthetics?–Gifford v. Sheil (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alexandra J. Roberts It’s become known as the “sad beige lawsuit” or the case that asks the question “can you ever really own an aesthetic?” But the suit, in which 24-year-old influencer Sydney Nicole Gifford accuses another…
Courts Are Echoing The Third Circuit’s Repeal of Section 230–Huckabee v. Meta
Mike Huckabee is the former governor of Arkansas and Trump’s choice for ambassador to Israel. He claims that CBD advertisers featured his name, photo, and likeness in Facebook ads. An example of the ads is displayed on the right. As…
The VPPA May Be a Dinosaur Statute, But It’s Very Much Alive in the Second Circuit–Salazar v. NBA
NBA.com passed along video viewing information to Facebook using the Facebook Pixel, including “(1) the title of the NBA.com video a user watched, (2) that video’s URL, and (3) the user’s “Facebook ID” (FID)—a number unique to each individual Facebook…
Heightened Constitutional Scrutiny is Not Required for Content-Based Trademark Registration Laws That Are Viewpoint-Neutral—Vidal v. Elster (Guest Blog Post)
By Lisa Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law The Supreme Court held in Elster that Section 2(c) is consistent with the First Amendment, but the Justices disagree on how to evaluate the constitutionality of trademark…
Reusing Social Media Photos for Ads? Be Careful!–Khachatryan v. 1 Hotel
This case involves the following photo posted to the “@brave_johnson” Instagram account, which self-describes as the account of a 7-year old and lists 2 URLs for talent agencies: [Note: normally I would think carefully about posting photos of children, but…