Three Keyword Advertising Decisions in a Week, and the Trademark Owners Lost Them All
If you are a trademark owner suing over competitive keyword ads, you are almost certainly making a bad business decision, and your attorney might be milking your bank account. If you are an attorney representing a trademark owner in a…
Google Defeats Account Termination Case on Section 230 Grounds (Mostly)–Enhanced Athlete v. YouTube
This is another account termination case. The plaintiff ran two YouTube channels with 145k subscribers. The opinion implies that the channels hyped a steroid-like supplement not approved by the FDA (“SARMS”). As usual with cases in this genre, the plaintiff…
Comments on NTIA’s Petition to the FCC Seeking to Destroy Section 230
As requested by the Trump anti-Section 230 Executive Order from May, NTIA submitted a 57 page petition to the FCC asking the FCC to make rules interpreting Section 230. The FCC, in turn, has put the petition out for public…
Announcing the Fifth Edition of Advertising & Marketing Law: Cases & Materials by Tushnet & Goldman
Rebecca Tushnet and I are pleased to announce the fifth edition of our casebook, Advertising & Marketing Law: Cases & Materials. It is available for purchase in the following formats: * A DRM-free PDF file. Price: $12 * In Kindle. Price: $9.99…
A Second Circuit Panel Misunderstands the Copyright Act’s Statute of Limitations (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa In Sohm v. Scholastic, Inc., 959 F.3d 39 (2d Cir. 2020), a Second Circuit panel held that “the discovery rule applies for statute of limitations purposes in determining when a copyright infringement claim accrues under the…
The EARN IT Act Has Gotten Even More Terrible. So Of Course It’s Moving Forward
[February 8, 2022 update: EARN IT is back and worse than ever. The current draft has an inferior version of the Leahy Amendment. Otherwise, this post remains current.] I previously blogged the EARN IT Act (S.3398) in February and March….
IAP Defeats Vicarious Copyright Infringement Claim–UMG v. Bright House
In a good ruling for Internet access providers (IAPs), a court said that the IAP Bright House wasn’t vicariously liable for its users’ copyright infringing activity because the IAP lacked a direct financial benefit. The court says that the legal…
While Our Country Is Engulfed By Urgent Must-Solve Problems, Congress Is Working Hard to Burn Down Section 230
This post will be unusually blunt about my disenchantment with the state of our country, a topic I don’t normally discuss on the blog. Some of you will not like this post. I expect my next post will feel more…
Comments on the Internet Association’s Empirical Study of Section 230 Cases
Elizabeth Banker of the Internet Association has posted “A Review Of Section 230’S Meaning & Application Based On More Than 500 Cases.” This complements Prof. David Ardia’s comprehensive empirical study of Section 230 caselaw from a decade ago. It’s great…
Data Center Avoids Copyright Liability By Forwarding DMCA Notices to Its Customer–ALS Scan v. Steadfast
Steadfast operates data centers. Imagebam is one of its customers. Imagebam provides image hosting services. Allegedly, Imagebam has “become an unauthorized hub of copyrighted adult material.” ALS Scan, which owns many copyrights in pornographic works, sent Steadfast DMCA takedown notices…