Perfect 10 Can’t Sue Yandex for Out-of-Country Activity (Catch-up Post)
By Eric Goldman Perfect 10, Inc. v. Yandex N.V., 2013 WL 3668818 (N.D. Cal. July 12, 2013) This case has sat in my blog queue for a few weeks because I’m still not sure what to make of it. I…
Federal Court Doesn’t ‘Like” Service of Process via Facebook — Joe Hand Proms. v. Carrette
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Joe Hand Promotions, Inc. v. Carrette, 12-2633-CM (D. Kan. July 9, 2013) People have mused about the inevitability of service of process via Facebook, but a recent decision shows that it may not be so quick…
Emotional Distress Claim Doesn’t Support Fishing Expedition for Social Media Evidence
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Giacchetto v. Patchogue-Medford Union Free School Dist., 2013 U.S. Dist LEXIS 83341 CV 11-6323 (ADS)(AKT) (E.D.N.Y. May 6, 2013) This is another discovery dispute over social media content. Plaintiff was a long-time elementary school teacher and…
More Evidence That Competitive Keyword Advertising Benefits Trademark Owners (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Many trademark owners hate that rivals can bid on Google AdWords ads triggered by their trademarks, a process I call “competitive keyword advertising.” Trademark owners (and many judges) often assume that a Google search on a trademark…
Rationalizing (?) the Hart and Keller v. EA Sports Publicity Rights Rulings (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa [Eric’s note: this is a long blog post from my colleague Tyler. It does a great job demonstrating that the interplay between the First Amendment and the publicity rights is complete anarchy, which isn’t surprising…
Gun Classified Ads Website Isn’t Liable for Murder–Vesely v. Armslist
By Eric Goldman Vesely v. Armslist, LLC , 1:13-cv-00607 (N.D. Ill. July 29, 2013) Armslist runs an online classified ad website for guns. After finding each other on Armslist, Ladera sold a gun to Smirnov, who used the gun to…
Facebook Posting That Someone Has Herpes Is Criminal Harassment–Pennsylvania v. Cox
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with a comment by Eric] Commonwealth v. Cox, 2013 PA Super 221 (Aug 2, 2013) [pdf] What is wrong with people? What were you thinking here, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania? Lindsey Marie Cox (age 18) posted the…
The Latest Attempt to Use Copyright Law to Remove Negative Consumer Reviews–Small Justice v. Xcentric (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman [Note: as you know, I closed comments on this blog in 2006 because of a virulent comment spam attack. Sometimes I miss having comments, but then again, seeing the comments I got at Forbes in response to…
Book Review: “The Little Book of Foodie Law”
By Eric Goldman Cecil C. Kuhne, The Little Book of Foodie Law (Little Books) [Amazon affiliate link] [Note: I checked out this book because someday I hope to offer a Food Law course, and I wanted to see if this…
Breach of Data Retention Policy Doesn’t Create Actionable Injury – Burton v. Time Warner (Catch-up Post)
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Burton v. Time Warner Cable Inc., 12-06764 JGB (AJWx) (C.D. Cal. March 20, 2013) [Note: this is a catch up post that fell by the wayside, but I thought it was interesting in its recap of…