Verizon and Its Cloud Vendor Must Face Lawsuit for Reporting “CSAM” That Wasn’t – Lawshe v. Verizon (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Riana Pfefferkorn Child sex abuse material, or CSAM, is a longstanding scourge on the Internet. Like the baseball diamond in “Field of Dreams,” if you build a service that allows file transmission or storage, someone will come…
Another Lawsuit Over Online Content Restrictions Fails–Qian v. YouTube
Qian uploaded content to YouTube, which YouTube restricted in various ways. Qian sued YouTube for breaching its TOS. The district court granted summary judgment to YouTube. The Second Circuit affirms. YouTube’s TOS contained a standard reservation of rights to do…
Section 230 Still Applies to Email Forwarding–Motekaitis v. USI
Motekaitis and Kneass worked for USI. There were rumors about the circumstances of their departure. Marsh & McLennan (MMA) was contemplating hiring Motekaitis, but then an email from a USI employee (Kane) about Motekaitis spooked MMA. MMA employees allegedly circulated…
Serial Copyright Plaintiff Lacks Standing to Enforce Third-Party Copyrights–Viral DRM v 7News
This case involves Viral DRM, which syndicates third-party videos of extreme weather events. It claims that 7News Australia downloaded videos from YouTube, stripped out the copyright management information (CMI), and incorporated the videos into its own videos that it uploaded…
Section 230 Doesn’t Apply to “Refer-a-Friend” Text Message–Jensen v. Capital One
Capital One has a “refer-a-friend” program for its customers. Capital One provides its customers with promotional content and a customer-specific referral URL. Customers can edit the content as they see fit, then send it to their friends (or their enemies…
Court Overturns a Bad Jury Verdict Against Scraping–Ryanair v Booking (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy This summer, I wrote that the jury trial between Ryanair and Booking Holdings ended in the strangest way possible. The jury returned a verdict that Booking Holdings had caused exactly $5,000 in legally cognizable “loss”…
The Ninth Circuit Has a Lot to Say About Online Contract Formation (Much of It Confusing)–Chabolla v. ClassPass
I previously summarized this case: The plaintiffs claim they signed up for a ClassPass membership but got unexpectedly auto-renewed. (ClassPass appears to be an aggregator of third-party fitness classes). ClassPass sought to send the case to arbitration based on its…
Another Conflict Between Privacy Laws and Age Authentication–Murphy v. Confirm ID
This opinion is a routine ruling over TOS formation and whether disputes must go to arbitration. However, before I dig into that question, I need to note the case’s chilling implications. * * * This case involves the Adult Friend…
Court Rejects an Attempt to Create a Common-Law Notice-and-Takedown Scheme–Bogard v. TikTok
The plaintiffs allege they notified YouTube and TikTok about videos that allegedly violated the services’ rules, and the services didn’t take action on those notifications despite making various promises to do so. These arguments revisit well-trodden legal ground, but the…
Blogiversary: How the Blog Helps Readers (Part 5 of 10)
I’m continuing my coverage of the blog’s 20th blogiversary. I asked blog readers to explain how the blog helps them. Some of the answers I got: __ “Professionally, the various click wrap cases and explanations have been the most helpful….