My Comments on Google Print

By Eric Goldman I have been thinking a lot about Google Print, Google’s plan to scan in and index all of the books of some of the largest libraries in the world. This program has some obvious benefits to society;…

City of Heroes Lawsuit–New Ruling on False DMCA Takedown Notices

By Eric Goldman Marvel Enterprises v. NCSoft Corp., CV 04-9253-RGK (C.D. Cal. Aug. 23, 2005). Given the interest in this case, I’m surprised that this ruling appears to have been overlooked (I found it through BNA [subscription required]). In late…

Lane’s Gifts Click Fraud Lawsuit Back to State Court

By Eric Goldman Quick update on the Lane’s Gifts class action lawsuit over click fraud. The Eighth Circuit refused to hear an appeal of the federal court determination that the lawsuit should be remanded back to state court, so the…

Branded products as ingredients

By Mark McKenna Brett Frischmann tells a story about trying to buy his son a cookie with M&M’s on it and having the person working at the cookie stand insist on calling the cookies “B&B” cookies, not M&M cookies. According…

U.T. v. Longhornsingles.com Part 2 – state email filtering

This second post of a two-part posting continues looking at the 5th Circuit’s opinion in this unique case. The first post focused on the CAN-SPAM Act and how the court applied it in this case. This scond post will talk about 1st Amendment complications when a government agency or entity (in this case the University of Texas) adopts a filtering policy or blocks email.

Specht v. Netscape–What Happened After the 2nd Circuit Remand?

By Eric Goldman (with help from Matt Goeden) The Specht v. Netscape 2nd Circuit opinion is a modern classic. The case articulates a clean (and, in my opinion, sensible) rule about online contract formation. I think it’s a great teaching…

More on Shortsightedness

By Mark McKenna Guest blogger Brett Frischmann has a really good post over at madisonian.net. He argues that at least some of the problems New Orleans has experienced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are consequences of shortsightedness. I’ve been…

Details on Marquette’s Participation in BSA’s “Define the Line” Program

By Eric Goldman Back in May, I blogged about Marquette being the first participant in the Business Software Association’s “Define the Line” campaign against on-campus copyright infringement. The details were sketchy, but the Marquette Tribune student paper ran an article…

When a guitar is just a guitar

By Mark McKenna The 6th Circuit today released an interesting decision restricting the application of initial interest and post sale confusion doctrines, at least in the context of product configuration. Gibson Guitar Corp. has manufactured its Les Paul line of…

IP and Cognitive Psychology

By Mark McKenna William Patry has an interesting post over at his blog about how courts go about determining substantial similarity in copyright infringement actions. The post resonated with me for a couple of reasons. First, I always have great…