eBay Defeats Contributory Copyright Claim–Lee v. SBS
Lee is enforcing music copyrights against karaoke machine makers that allegedly include copyrighted songs. He sent numerous NOCIs to eBay targeting the machines. eBay apparently honored the NOCIs. However, Lee really wanted staydowns, which eBay did not do. Lee claims…
Large Roundup of Section 230 Rulings
This blog post rounds up nearly 20 Section 230 cases (and adjacent cases), mostly from the past four months, that for whatever reason I didn’t cover in a standalone blog post. Section 230’s effects are waning overall, but this post…
YouTube Exits Copyright Lawsuit Over YouTubers’ Videos–Barnes v. Sanchez
This is a copyright infringement lawsuit among pro se litigants. The dispute sideswipes YouTube, but YouTube is able to exit on a motion to dismiss. The plaintiff claims a copyright in a book, Drug Lords of Oakland. The defendants operate…
Court Rebuffs Emojico’s SAD Scheme TRO Request
This is a very recent Emojico SAD Scheme enforcement (filed last week). I’ve blogged a few Emojico cases before (see the link list below). Indeed, my interest in the SAD Scheme started with an Emojico case, so I pay a…
Cloudflare Defeats Lawsuit Over Nonconsensual Intimate Imagery (NCII) on Facebook–Doe v. Cloudflare
This is a putative class action lawsuit. The named plaintiff provided intimate images to her then-fiance, who (after the breakup) created fake Facebook profiles of the plaintiff and uploaded her intimate images without consent (turning the images into NCII). She…
Private Facebook Group Can Exclude Member–Khan v. ILONCA
The plaintiffs are a husband-wife couple, Khan and Abdulhamid. They are both Muslim and ethnically Middle Eastern. The plaintiffs bought a house in the Island Lake of Novi residential community in suburban Detroit. Halmaghi was the seller’s listing agent. The…
Scammy Ad Lawsuits Keep Vexing the Courts–Huckabee v. Meta
Scammers used Mike Huckabee’s name and image to hawk CBD products in Facebook ads. I’m not in the ad’s target audience, so it blows my mind that anyone would buy anything because Huckabee touted it (or was falsely claimed to)….
Blogger Defeats Photographer’s Copyright Claim–Sokolskyfilm v. Messiah
I’m blogging this case only because it’s one of those “what are we even doing here?” lawsuits. Cases like this belong in the CCB or, better yet, should not be brought at all! * * * The case involves a…
Section 230 Doesn’t Apply to Generative AI Enhancements to Ad Copy (But the Plaintiffs Lose Anyway)–Bouck and Suddeth v. Meta
The blog post covers two cases involving scammy ads on Facebook that were part of a pump-and-dump for Chinese penny stocks. The first two rulings came in March. In the Bouck case, the court rejected Facebook’s Section 230 defense because…
Google Search Isn’t a Common Carrier (duh)–Ohio v. Google
Censorship efforts tend to come in fads. Censors get fired up about a new censorship theory and try it out, but the experiment tends to not satisfy them (either because it’s struck down or doesn’t scratch their censorship itch enough)…