Comments on the Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton SCOTUS Oral Arguments on Mandatory Online Age “Verification”
Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, regarding a Texas law that requires adult-oriented websites to age-authenticate all users–minors and adults alike–before they can…
512(c) Helps Vimeo Defeat the Record Labels. It Only Took 15 Years–Capitol v. Vimeo
This case is a throwback in every way. We rarely see lengthy (this one clocks in at 46 pages), detailed, and philosophical Section 512(c) opinions any more, and we only…
Catching Up on the Heavyweight Scraping Battle Between X and Bright Data (Guest Blog Post)
…a host of new legal claims. [FN from Eric: per the Isaacson biography, in a poker game, Musk went all-in on every poker hand until he eventually won]. On November…
Court Denies Preliminary Injunction Against Minnesota’s Anti-“Deepfakes” Law–Kohls v. Ellison
“Minnesota Statutes section 609.771 prohibits, under certain circumstances, the dissemination of ‘deepfakes’ with the intent to injure a political candidate or influence the result of an election.” The plaintiffs brought…
Copyright Battles Over City Council Videos
As the maxim goes, all politics are local. A corollary is that few political disputes are as nasty or vitrolic as local politics. When local disputes devolve into total warfare,…
2024 Internet Law Year-in-Review
My ranking of the top 10 Internet Law developments of 2024. 10) X/Twitter Embraces Partisan Bias. For years, MAGA has claimed that Internet company employees are liberals and therefore surely…
California’s “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act” Is Partially Unconstitutional…But Other Parts Are Green-Lighted–NetChoice v. Bonta
California SB 976, “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act,” is one of the multitudinous laws that pretextually claim to protect kids online. Like many such laws nowadays, it’s…
The “Winning Isn’t Normal” Copyright Enforcement Campaign Is More “Abusive” Than “Winning”–Bell v. Kiffin
…after the Fifth Circuit had issued its opinion in Eagle Mountain. [Eric’s Note: Mississippi is a Fifth Circuit jurisdiction, so the Fifth Circuit’s Eagle Mountain ruling is binding precedent on…
The Fifth Circuit’s Campaign to Undermine Section 230 Is Making Progress–AB v. Salesforce
…should have known) was engaged in sex trafficking. Hold on. In the last sentence, the court uses the generic descriptor “a company.” That’s deceptively imprecise. Salesforce didn’t just serve any…
Court Declares Parts of Twitter’s TOS Unconscionable–Gerber v. Twitter
This is a data breach case involving a flaw in Twitter’s API that allowed malefactors to steal information about 200M Twitter users. Twitter invokes its TOS, including its warranty disclaimer…