President Trump Violated the First Amendment by Blocking Users @realdonaldtrump
This is a lawsuit brought by Twitter users and the Knight Foundation against President Trump (and his social media strategist and press secretary). The lawsuit alleges that the President violates plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by blocking them on Twitter. The…
Who Needs a Copyright Small Claims Court? Evidence from the U.K.’s IP Enterprise Court (Guest Blog Post)
by guest bloggers Christian Helmers, Yassine Lefouili, Brian J. Love & Luke McDonagh Amidst recent excitement surrounding the Music Modernization Act (which passed the House last month) and the CLASSICS Act (the subject of Senate Judiciary hearings last week), it would…
Redfin Must Defend Copyright Suit Over Property Photos–Stross v. Redfin
Stross is a photographer who licenses his photographs to real estate agents. He licensed the photos through ACTRIS, a multiple listing service that compiles listings into a database for use by brokers and realtors. ACTRIS users who upload their photos…
Illinois Users’ Face-Scanning Privacy Lawsuit Against Facebook Headed to Trial
This is a class action asserting that Facebook’s face recognition and scanning practices violate the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act rights of Illinois users. The court previously rejected Facebook’s arguments based on choice of law and standing, and certified a class….
YouTube Defeats Another Remove-and-Relocate Lawsuit–Song Fi v. Google
The YouTube “remove-and-relocate” cases involve similar facts. A YouTuber uploaded a video and promoted it. YouTube suspected irregularities with the promotion, removed the video from its initial URL (breaking inbound links, stripping the comments, and resetting the like and view…
“Nerd’s Version of a Fist Fight” Doesn’t Support Injunction Against Blogger–Santilli v. Van Erp
Santilli claims to have developed a telescope that can detect antimatter. Van Erp is dubious about that claim. Van Erp ran a blog that included posts like “The Continuing Stupidity of Ruggero Santilli” and “More Santilli Shenanigans.” The court says:…
Bittersweet DMCA Safe Harbor Defense Win in Ninth Circuit–Ventura v. Motherless (Catch-Up Post)
Motherless runs a UGC site for adult content. None of its content is licensed from content producers. It is primarily ad-supported (85%), with the remaining revenues coming from subscriptions (but only 0.2% of active users are subscribers) and sales of schwag. For a…
A DMCA Section 512(f) Case Survives Dismissal–ISE v. Longarzo (Catch-up Post)
I’m blogging this case now, even though it came out a few months ago, because we see so few 512(f) cases that make any progress at all. At its core, the litigants dispute ownership over a TV show, “The Weekend…
The Ninth Circuit STILL Thinks Keyword Metatags Matter in 2018–Adidas v. Skechers
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit ruled about trademarked stripes on tennis shoes. To me, legally weaponizing dots in three lines on a shoe predictably leads to wasteful and possibly anti-consumer litigation. However, instead of critiquing the opinion generally, I’ll isolate just…
First Amendment Doesn’t Protect Encouraging Readers to Make Anti-Semitic Attacks–Gersh v. Daily Stormer
Gersh, the plaintiff, is a realtor living in Whitefish, Montana. She heard about a planned protest of businesses housed in a building owned by Sherry Spencer, the mother of Richard Spencer. (Richard, among other things, went viral for getting punched…