Twitter Narrows, But Doesn’t Completely Avoid, a Dangerous Copyright Lawsuit–Concord Music v. X
Music publishers sued Twitter for users’ alleged copyright infringement. The court says that three aspects of the contributory copyright infringement claim survive Twitter’s motion to dismiss. Direct Copyright Infringement. The…
Fifth Circuit Once Again Disregards Supreme Court Precedent and Mangles Section 230–Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton
Texas passed a law (HB 1181) requiring pornographic websites to age-authenticate all users and then prevent minors from accessing online porn. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Congress passed functionally…
“Ringless Voicemail” Vendor Wins Section 230 Defense Against FTC–US v. Stratics Networks
[This is one of those opinions that is a slog to blog because the court’s statutory analysis made my head hurt. If this opinion confuses you, welcome to the club….
The SAD Scheme as an Institutional Failure
[These are my rough-draft talk notes from a recent workshop of trademark law professors.] The SAD Scheme involves a trademark owner suing dozens/hundreds of defendants using a sealed complaint, getting…
Section 230 Doesn’t Apply to Sending Non-Consensual Pornography by Postal Mail–Doe v. Spencer
Spencer’s wife had an extra-marital affair with Doe. Doe sent “photographs and screen shots of sexually explicit images” to the wife. Spencer, the husband, came into possession of these materials…
Print-on-Demand Service Defeats Fish Illustrator’s Copyright Claim–Tomelleri v. Sunfrog
…on prima facie grounds, not because of the safe harbors. Implications. The court summarizes: In sum, Plaintiff’s Complaint was all bait and no hook. [Eric’s note: get the pun?] Although…
Print-on-Demand Services Face More Legal Woes–Canvasfish v. Pixels
In the ongoing legal battles over print-on-demand services, RedBubble and (more recently) Printify have sometimes achieved favorable results by disaggregating all of the functions and acting solely as a marketing…
“Assuming Good Faith Online” Essay Published
I’m pleased to announce the publication of my essay, “Assuming Good Faith Online,” in the Journal of Online Trust and Safety. The published version. This essay has had a more…
WIPIP 2024 Highlights
…was interested in taking photos with them. I now offer Goldman’s Third Law: if you leave out banana costumes in a photo area, nature will take its course. We even…
Facebook Drops Anti-Scraping Lawsuit Against Bright Data (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy There is a new most important legal precedent in the world of web scraping. Bright Data appears to have prevailed in its dispute against Meta….