[I did a short interview with a book author:] When we hear this debate of whether social media sites are publishers or platforms, why is it relevant to everyday consumers of content from sites like Facebook and YouTube? It isn’t,…
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Compulife Software, Inc. v. Newman is the first circuit court case in more than half a decade to expand liability for web scrapers under state and federal law. The two most recent circuit court opinions…
In April, a magistrate judge issued a breathtaking ruling that Craigslist can be sued for sex trafficking torts, that Section 230 didn’t support Craigslist’s motion to dismiss, and that the statute of limitations might not apply even though the facts…
TL; DR: fair use supports another motion to dismiss a photo copyright case. A ruling of mild interest to copyright lawyers. However, the real reason you’re going to want to read this blog post is to learn why a court…
This is another one of my overlong angsty posts about the death of Section 230. Today’s angst is about the liability regime for online marketplace transactions, the inevitable demise of online marketplaces, and how we’ll all end up poorer when…
This Twibel opinion starts off colorfully: “If the Internet is akin to the Wild West, as many have suggested, Twitter is, perhaps, the shooting gallery, where verbal gunslingers engage in prolonged hyperbolic crossfire. It is in this context of battle…
This is a long-running and complex copyright takedown dispute that has been triggering my Westlaw alerts for years. I only blogged it once, in 2017, when the 512(f) claim survived a motion to dismiss. At that time, I wrote “given…
Maffick publishes millennial-friendly videos on Facebook pages titled “In the Now,” “Waste-Ed” and “Soapbox.” See this CNN article for some background. Facebook added its new “Russia State-Controlled Media” label to their pages (see today’s screenshot on the right; I added…
Competitive keyword advertising lawsuits are still stupid, and they are still typically doomed in court. This is especially true in keyword advertising disputes between rival lawyers, something that I spoke out against in 2016. Despite that, one of these two…
Time for another roundup of online contract formation cases. HomeAdvisor, Inc. v. Waddell, 2020 WL 2988565 (Tex. Ct. App. June 4, 2020) The court finds this a valid contract formation process: The court explains: the submittal page was uncluttered, with…