by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Most online terms-of-use agreements claim to give their drafters broad discretion to modify the terms at the host’s discretion. Some terms-of-use agreements purport to allow host websites to modify the terms by sending an email…
Ceesay, an Uber driver, picked up 2 passengers who allegedly murdered him so they could steal his car. A story about the tragedy. The passengers allegedly created a “fake” Uber account using a prepaid cellphone and gift cards. The estate…
by guest blogger Aaron Perzanowski, University of Michigan Law School Last week, an Illinois jury awarded tattoo artist Catherine Alexander $3,750 in damages at the conclusion of a copyright infringement trial. Alexander claimed that Take-Two Interactive infringed the tattoo designs she inked…
[I’ll blog the Supreme Court’s cert grant in Gonzalez v. Google probably later this week.] Yout’s software allows users to rip digital streams, such as from YouTube. It sought a declaratory judgment that it did not violate 17 USC 1201(a)(1)…
Elansari is Muslim. This is not his first time as a plaintiff. In this lawsuit, he claims that Facebook blocks pro-Palestinian publishers and favors pro-Israeli publishers. Thus, he argues, Jewish readers are more likely to get the information they want…
This case relates to Target’s “Cat & Jack” clothing line. The plaintiff, NOC, is a teenager who has copyrighted designs in hand-drawn dots that Target allegedly copied in the clothing line. Target and NOC had some direct dealings, including bringing…
Shared.com is a content producer. It ran Facebook self-service ads and participated in Facebook’s “instant articles” program that let Facebook embed ads in its content in exchange for a revenue cut. Starting in 2018, Shared “lost access” to the instant…
This is a 512(c) online copyright safe harbor case. We rarely see opinions like this any more. In 2022, I’ve blogged just one other 512(c) case (Davis v. Pinterest). (Business Casual v. YouTube should have been a 512(c) case, but…
On September 19, I gathered some CCB stats. This was 95 days after launch. 155 claims had been filed as of that date. (Today, the number is 157). That implies an annual run rate of less than 600 claims. Every…
[This is a 6k+ word blog post that was joyless to write and most likely will be joyless to read.] If you want a distillation of this decision, consider this line: “Far from justifying pre-enforcement facial invalidation, the Platforms’ obsession…