A Cautionary Tale of Sarcasm in Social Media–Ross v. City of Jackson
An unspecified Facebook friend of Ross posted a meme that was something like this: Ross favors gun control. He replied with a comment: “Which one do I need to shoot up a kindergarten?” Perhaps feeling satisfied that he had won the…
GoDaddy & Instagram Avoid Liability for Users’ Photos of Knockoff Goods–Franklin v. X Gear 101
The plaintiff owns copyright and trademark registrations in a bear logo. He claims a defendant created a similar-looking bear logo and marketed goods using that logo: I’ll focus on the court’s treatment of plaintiffs’ claims against GoDaddy and Instagram….
A First (But Very Incomplete) Crack at Inventorying the California Consumer Privacy Act’s Problems
If you haven’t seen it, I summarized the California Consumer Privacy Act in a 3,000 word primer. If you aren’t familiar with the law, read that first. This post addresses the law’s multitudinous errors and major ambiguities. The list in this…
Announcing the 2018 Edition of My Internet Law Casebook
I’m pleased to announce this year’s edition of my Internet Law casebook, Internet Law: Cases & Materials. It’s available for sale as a PDF at Gumroad for $10, as a Kindle book for $9.99, in hard copy at Amazon for…
Advertiser’s Suit Against Google Loses for Third (and Final) Time–Abid v. Google
I previously described this case: “Abid markets cancer-curing honey. He bought AdWords to promote his MightyHoney website. Google rejected the ads.” The court has dismissed this pro se lawsuit twice already, each time without prejudice. Prior blog posts from April…
Unlinked Webpage Doesn’t Support Trademark Infringement–Nelson-Ricks v. Lakeview
A now-defunct cheese company owned two brands, “Banquet” and “Nelson Ricks Creamery.” The defendant bought the Banquet brand and associated website, plus it got a limited license to use the Nelson Ricks Creamery brand. The plaintiff bought the Nelson Ricks…
Businesses Cannot Contractually Ban “Abusive” Consumer Reviews
An article recently posted to SSRN argues that the Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA) purportedly lets businesses contractually ban “abusive” reviews. If this is correct, it could affect millions of businesses and hundreds of millions of consumers. However, the article’s…
COMO: Content Moderation at Scale Conference Recap
The COMO: Content Moderation at Scale conference was held in Washington DC in early May. It was a follow-up to the Content Moderation and Removal at Scale conference held at Santa Clara University in early February. See my recap of…
Trolling the Internet for Photos Creates Copyright Headaches for Ad Agency (and the Advertiser)–Laspata v. Rimowa
Laspata is “a boutique creative marketing agency” that charges a lot of money. For its client, Laspata created a 1920s-themed “lookbook” called “Speechless” that riffed on the Academy Award-winning movie The Artist. Rimowa makes luggage priced above my budget. Meire…
Q2 2018 Quick Links, Part 5 (Potpourri)
My email inbox has gotten out of control, and I had to declare partial email bankruptcy. In this post, I’m largely quoting highlights from 18 cases I had flagged for closer review or possible posting over the past 18 months…