Galster on Infomediaries and Bonded Sender Programs

By Eric Goldman In late March, I posted a blog post entitled “Infomediaries–Where Are They?” In that post, I explained why infomediaries have the potential to improve social welfare compared to our existing marketing system, but I noted that no…

Copyright Infringement for Bundling with P2P File Sharing Software?

By Eric Goldman Suzi of Spyware Confidential/Spyware Warrior relayed the following question to me: “Saw your recent posting on the Direct Revenue/KaZaA partnership. Many have praised this move despite the fact the Supreme Court has ruled that these P2P networks…

Peering Agreement Dispute Between Level 3 and Cogent

By Eric Goldman Peering agreements rarely get much attention, even though they are the Internet’s infrastructure. Through peering agreements, Internet access providers (IAPs) agree to exchange packets directly with another IAP. These exchanges are usually for no money with the…

Amazon Not Liable for User Book Reviews–Hammer v. Amazon

By Eric Goldman Hammer v. Amazon.com, 2005 WL 2467046 (EDNY Sept. 27, 2005) This is a continuation of Hammer v. Trendl, 2003 WL 2146686 (EDNY Jan. 18, 2003). Hammer is a self-published author of handwriting analysis books. He had a…

Presentation on Coasean Analysis of Marketing

By Eric Goldman I’m giving a talk on my next major paper (tentatively titled “A Coasean Analysis of Marketing”…a title that will likely change yet again), at the Midwestern Law & Economics Association meeting in Chicago. A preview of my…

Jacoby on Sponsorship Confusion

By Eric Goldman Sorry for the light blogging–between my travel/presentation schedule and the Jewish holidays, it has been hectic! Jacob Jacoby is a leading trademark survey expert/consultant–I imagine he’s been an expert in over 150 trademark cases. He recently posted…

A Sharp Stick in the Eye of Trademark Law?

By Mark McKenna Over at his interesting blog (which Mark Schultz plugged a little while back), Grant McCracken has a post discussing modern marketing practices in terms of their “roundness” or “sharpness.” He suggests that all marketing used to be…

Menell on State Anti-Spyware Regulation

By Eric Goldman Peter Menell has posted his article “Regulating ‘Spyware’: The Limitations of State ‘Laboratories’ and the Case for Federal Preemption of State Unfair Competition Laws” to SSRN. This article thoroughly examines state-level unfair competition laws and how they…

Law Enforcement Collection of DNA

Recent legislative activity in the US Senate has brought some press attention to the touchy issue of DNA collection by law enforcement. Similar proposed and passed DNA legislation at the state and federal levels over the last several years has also drawn court challenges. As a result, a fair number of court opinions on the suject exist, enough to allow a quick look at the legal countours and legislative status of DNA collection laws.