Student Disciplined for Posting Threatening Mashup Video to Instagram–AN v. Upper Perkiomen School District
A.N. is a 15 year student at Upper Perkiomen High School (a distant suburb of Philadelphia). He mashed up part of the viral video “Evan,” a video about how we can easily overlook homicidal students, with the song “Pumped Up…
Another Court Rejects DTSA Ex Parte Seizure–Brunswick Rail v Sultanov
You may recall my criticisms of the Defend Trade Secrets Act’s ex parte seizure provision. As far as I know, only two courts have addressed it. Last year, a court declined to grant the seizure without any discussion at all….
Top 10 Internet Law Developments of 2016
Donald Trump’s election as president pretty much dominated our thoughts about 2016 (though Brexit was pretty significant too). So I decided to break up my annual top 10 list into two separate top 5 lists, one election-related, one not. Top…
A Seismic Ruling Revisited: No Common-Law Public Performance Rights in Pre-1972 Sound Recordings in New York–Flo & Eddie v. Sirius
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa On December 20, 2016, the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in the State of New York) held 4-2 (with one judge recused) that “New York common-law copyright does not recognize a right…
2H 2016 Quick Links, Part 9 (Privacy/Security)
* California AB 691: “Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act.” The key part is the new Probate Code Sec. 873(a): A user may use an online tool to direct the custodian to disclose to a designated recipient or…
2H 2016 Quick Links, Part 8 (Fake News, Terrorist Content, Censorship & More)
Fake News/The Presidential Election * NY Times: Facebook Is Said to Question Its Influence in Election * Slate: The Real Problem Behind the Fake News * Vox: Facebook exec: “We resisted having standards” on fake news. “That was wrong.” *…
2H 2016 Quick Links, Part 7 (Consumer Reviews & Defamation)
Consumer Reviews * Eugene Volokh and Paul Levy: Dozens of suspicious court cases, with missing defendants, aim at getting web pages taken down or deindexed. See also Ross Todd, Attorneys Accused of Filing Bogus Suits in Alleged Scheme to Stamp…
Does Google’s Non-Disclosure Agreement With Employees Overreach? (Guest Blog Post)
Guest Post by Sharon K. Sandeen In the lead-up to this year’s Presidential election, there was a lot of chatter about the next “bomb-shell” bit of information that might be revealed about Donald Trump, particularly after his now-infamous pussy-grabbing comments….
Freelance Blogger Denied Unemployment Insurance–In re Mitchell
This case involves author Greg Mitchell. The Nation retained Mitchell as a freelance blogger in 2010. He was expected to blog on a daily/near-daily basis in exchange for $46,800/year paid monthly. He would be separately compensated for any pieces the…
Ten Worst Section 230 Rulings of 2016 (Plus the Five Best)
2016 was a tough year in many respects (check out the #Fuck2016 hashtag), including a swarm of adverse Section 230 rulings. Even in paradigms where the immunity still functions reasonably well, such as user comments on message boards or online…