Class Certification Denied Over Rightsowners’ Demands for Content ID Access–Schneider v. YouTube
The court summarizes the case: “plaintiffs allege that YouTube has violated the copyright laws by withholding broad access to Content ID….Plaintiffs also allege that YouTube automatically strips metadata out of uploaded videos, including copyright management information (CMI), which makes it…
Court Greenlights TikTok Content Moderators’ Lawsuit–Young v. ByteDance
TikTok outsources some of its content moderation/review to third-party BPOs (Atrium and Telus). Two BPO-employed reviewers claim they suffered psychological harm from their work. The lawsuit claims the BPOs were TikTok’s proxies. Allegedly: TikTok provided all “instructional” and “training” materials. …
More Thoughts about the SCOTUS Twitter and Google Rulings
[I did a media interview about last week’s Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google rulings. The transcript:] What got you into the field of internet law? What is most interesting in the field right now? I have been researching…
Competitive Keyword Ad Lawsuit Fails…Despite 236 Potentially Confused Customers–Lerner & Rowe v. Brown Engstrand
This case involves two rival personal injury law firms in Arizona, one of which engaged in competitive keyword advertising against the other. The court dismisses the lawsuit on summary judgment. The court focuses on the likelihood of consumer confusion. The…
Ill-Advised Attempt to Blow Up the DMCA Online Safe Harbors Unsurprisingly Fails–Athos v. YouTube
Athos owns the copyrights to many classic Mexican films. Users regularly upload its film clips to YouTube. These uploads have irritated Athos since 2014. However, Athos rejected YouTube’s fast-lane options for copyright owners (such as the Copyright Match Tool, Content…
Roundup of Recent Section 230 Developments
Sometimes the Section 230 developments come faster than I can blog ’em, so they pile up in my queue. This post cleans the queue. * * * A.M. v. Omegle.com, LLC, 2023 WL 1470269 (D. Ore. Feb. 2, 2023). A…
The Internet Survives SCOTUS Review (This Time)–Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google
Today was the 2023 Super Bowl of Internet Law at the U.S. Supreme Court [FN]. SCOTUS issued two eagerly awaited decisions in the Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google cases (as well as decisions in the Warhol copyright fair…
Two Common but Disingenuous Phrases About Section 230
[I initially planned to write up this analysis as a short academic essay. If you’re interested in working with me to adapt this blog post into an academic essay format, email me.] This blog post is about the following two…
“Twitter Files” Don’t Help Revive Jawboning Case–Hart v. Facebook
I previously described this lawsuit: Both Facebook and Twitter restricted Hart’s account access due to various posts over COVID, masking, and other culture war issues. Hart sued them for violating the First Amendment. You can guess how that went. Hart…
More on Law Firms and Competitive Keyword Ads–Nicolet Law v. Bye, Goff
This is another lawsuit between personal injury law firms over competitive keyword ads. The plaintiff is Nicolet Law, based in Hudson, Wisconsin with 14 offices in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The defendant is the Bye, Goff firm, based in River Falls,…