Multiple Listing Service Gets Favorable Appellate Ruling in Scraping Lawsuit
By Jake McGowan, with comments from Eric & Venkat Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. v. American Home Realty Network, Inc., 2013 WL 3722365 (4th Cir. July 17, 2013) This is a follow-up to our massive post on anti-scraping lawsuits in the…
YouTube Gets Easy Section 230 Win–Gavra v Google
By Eric Goldman Gavra v. Google Inc., 2013 WL 3788241 (N.D. Cal. July 17, 2013). The complaint. I [heart] easy 47 USC 230 cases. Here, a Romanian lawyer felt 13 YouTube clips, posted by an ex-client, defamed her. After sending…
Recap of Stanford E-Commerce Conference Panel on Takedown Notices
By Eric Goldman Last month, I attended Stanford Law School’s annual E-commerce Law Conference, one of my favorite conferences of the year because of its subject material and the chance to hang out with so many friends. This year, the…
Book Review: “Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads”
By Eric Goldman Kirk Demarais, Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads! (2011) [Amazon affiliate link] This was a kind gift from my colleague Kyle Graham. This is a well-conceived and well-executed book about the cheap novelties that…
Online Retailer Pays Minimum Damages When Taken Down Item Inadvertently Returns–Rosen v. Netfronts
By Jake McGowan Rosen v. Netfronts, CV 12-658 CAS (C.D. Cal. July 9, 2013) What happens when a website operator takes down a potentially copyright-infringing item, only to have it reappear through a technical mix-up? On July 9, a district…
JDate Member Agreement Upheld–Zaltz v. JDate (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Lisa Zaltz v. JDate, 2013 WL 3369073 (E.D.N.Y. July 8, 2013). Lisa Zaltz is a former member of JDate (a property of Spark Networks). She is unhappy with JDate for a laundry list of reasons (I had a…
Tenth Circuit Kills the Initial Interest Confusion Doctrine–1-800 Contacts v. Lens.com
By Eric Goldman 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. Lens.com, Inc., 2013 WL 3665627 (10th Cir. July 16, 2013) Here are some things I hate: * duplicitous litigants, such as plaintiffs who buy competitive keyword advertising yet sue competitors for doing the…
Think You Want To Be Told About Product Placements In Movies? Think Again (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Do you want movie producers to tell you when they have accepted money from brand owners to showcase their brands in movies, a phenomenon called product placement? Most people would say yes. We dislike thinking that we’re…
University May Be Liable for Improper Access to Student’s Facebook Photos – Rodriguez v. Widener Univ.
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Rodriguez v. Widener Univ., 12-1226, (E.D. Pa. June 17, 2013) Rodriguez was enrolled at Widener under the G.I. Bill, and was earning above-average grades. He had some friction with his advisor over their respective views of…
Dentist’s Defamation Lawsuit Against Yelp Preempted by Section 230–Braverman v. Yelp
By Eric Goldman Braverman v. Yelp, Inc., 2013 NY Slip Op 31407 (NY Sup. Ct June 28, 2013) Mal Braverman is a Manhattan dentist. He sued Yelp for defamation based on two allegedly defamatory user posts. I’m not sure which…