By Eric Goldman In 2009, Facebook ($FB) nominally enabled user governance by obligating itself to honor user votes before making certain site policy changes. This experiment in user self-governance was radical and largely unprecedented–especially given the size of Facebook’s userbase, which…
[Venkat Balasubramani with a comment by Eric] Funes v. Instagram, 12-6482 (N.D. Cal. complaint filed Dec. 21, 2012) Eric and I posted about Instagram’s recent TOS rev. Neither of us were particularly enthusiastic about the changes. (See Facebook’s Proposed Amended…
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Fraley v. Facebook, 11-cv-196193 (N.D. Cal.) (Amended Proposed Settlement) (Motion to Approve) (Preliminary Approval) (case docs, compiled by Citizen Media) I initially passed on blogging the amended proposed settlement agreement in Fraley v. Facebook, the Sponsored…
By Eric Goldman National Football Scouting, Inc. v. Rang, 11-cv-5762-RBL (W.D. Wash. Dec. 13, 2012) Individual numbers aren’t copyrightable, no matter how much work or judgment went into producing them. This proposition seems so obvious, I feel silly even mentioning…
By Eric Goldman There has been a lot of angst about software patents, and I’ve already posted about some of the problems software patents create and some of the challenges trying to fix those problems. Unfortunately, the rhetoric about software…
By Eric Goldman Software patents play a huge–and controversial–role in our economy. In a recent post, I explained some of the unique problems that software innovations pose to the patent system. This post extends that discussion by exploring two structural…
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with comments by Eric] I.B. v. Facebook, C 12 1894 CW (N.D. Cal. Oct. 25, 2012) Eric posted before about a Facebook sponsored stories lawsuit that was brought on behalf of minors. There, Facebook was confronted…
By Jake McGowan Profile Technology, Ltd. v. Facebook, Inc. (Complaint) Web developers sometimes try to enhance the functionality of an already-popular social network. But this typically requires permission to access the social network’s information, which is not always easy to…
By Eric Goldman LeBlanc v. Skinner, 2012 WL 6176900 (N.Y.A.D. Dec. 12, 2012) I’ve never heard of Wawayanda, New York before now, but I won’t quickly forget it. The court succinctly summarizes the underlying incident: [Town Board member] Soro discovered…
By Eric Goldman Every anti-SLAPP law is worded differently, but some statutes protect statements on “matters of public interest,” “issues of public concern” or something similar. This language usually doesn’t explicitly reference consumer reviews of marketplace offerings, but my position…