Addiction Lawsuit Against Character AI Can Proceed–Garcia v. Character Technologies
Online addiction lawsuits are proliferating across the country, a trend that will continue so long as plaintiffs think they can win. This decision largely rejects the defendants’ motion to dismiss, which will induce more plaintiff lawyers to bring more cases….
Photos in a Similar Style Aren’t Copyright-Infringing–Woodland v. Lil Nas X
The court summarizes the case: Rodney Woodland, a freelance artist and model, posts semi-naked photographs of himself in different poses on Instagram. Montero Lamar Hill, better known as the recording artist Lil Nas X, also has an Instagram account—and he,…
Video Game Addiction Case Mostly Sent to Arbitration–Orellana v. Roblox (Catch-up Post)
[Introductory note: This case appeared in my alerts recently. It is one of the many video game addiction lawsuits percolating throughout the courts nationwide. I don’t have a census of all of those cases because they aren’t hitting my alerts….
Court Upholds a Browsewrap (Because It Was Really a Sign-in-Wrap)–Hoar v. Hotmart
This case involves the Hotmart service, an online marketplace of digital items. The plaintiffs claim they didn’t receive their purchased items and were charged for other unwanted services. Hotmart invoked the venue selection clause in its TOS to try to…
School Board Official Censored Constituent by Blocking Access to Their Social Media Account–Garnier v. O’Connor-Ratcliff
This case involves two PUSD school board members, O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane, who “used their public Facebook and Twitter pages to post about goings-on at PUSD and their activities as Trustees.” The court summarizes: “In response to the Garniers’ numerous critical…
Amazon Merchant Takedown Notice Attack Spills Over to Court–GM Photo v. Focus Camera
[Note: lawsuits over takedown notice attacks occur occasionally. I’m blogging this case as an exemplar, not because it’s unique.] This case involves two Amazon marketplace merchants, GM Photo (operating as Digital Village) and Focus Camera. At issue are “high-end Sigma…
Price Lists Aren’t Copyrightable–Rapaport v. Nivoda
This case involves diamond prices. The plaintiff Rapaport publishes a weekly subscription-only price list of diamonds based on various attributes. This publication serves as an industry benchmark. The defendant Nivoda is an online retailer[FN] that displays how its prices are…
Meta Pixels Case Dismissed by Second Circuit–Solomon v. Triller
This ruling combines three common blog topics: (1) the VPPA 🙄, which always gets an eyeroll emoji because so many VPPA cases are obviously meritless, (2) the Meta Pixel cases, which are the modern successors to the 2003 Pharmatrak case…
Leaky TOS Formation = No TOS Formation–Snyder v. G6
This is a Meta pixels case agains the G6 hotel chain (a/k/a Motel 6). G6 sought to arbitrate the case per its TOS. G6 presented the court with a screenshot of Motel 6’s standard account creation process: G6 added the…
More Account Termination Cases Fail in Court
The account termination lawsuits keep coming, so I’ll keep blogging them. Housman v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 2025 WL 1249157 (D. Nev. April 29, 2025) This is a pro se/in pro per case. “Plaintiff’s Complaint alleges Defendants Meta, TikTok, X, and…