Should Police Wipe a Criminal’s Cellphone Before Returning It?–U.S. v. Stathas
“Stathas pleaded guilty in 2023 to enticing a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity” (18 U.S.C. § 2422(b)). He was sentenced to 180 months in prison and 10 years of supervised release. As part of the arrest and investigation,…
Some New Data on Age Authentication Balk Rates
The issue is: if a website imposes a government-compelled age authentication wall, what percentage of users will stop at the authentication wall, either because the users turn around or fail to navigate the process? I call that percentage the “balk”…
Washington Supreme Court Dismisses Meta Pixels Case–Baker v. Seattle Children’s Hospital
This is a Meta Pixels case on appeal to the Washington Supreme Court. It fails on a highly technical interpretation of the statute. The applicable Washington state statute restricts the interception of communications between two individuals. The Supreme Court says…
My Reddit AMA on the Law of Web Scraping
On Friday, I did a Reddit AMA with the r/WebScrapingInsider subreddit about the law of web scraping. You can see the entire discussion here. I posted an introduction to the AMA, which I am sharing here: __ Hi everyone, and…
Judge Barker (E.D. Tex.) Disassembles Two SAD Scheme Cases
Judge J. Campbell Barker (E.D. Tex.) issued two rulings involving SAD Scheme patent cases last week. The cases are: Shangyou Jiayi Lighting Product Co., Ltd. v. Schedule A Defendants, 2026 WL 2948520 (E.D. Tex. Sept. 30, 2026) and Haiying Liu …
Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg: The Right Way to Evaluate Wrongfulness (Guest Blog Post)
by guest bloggers Bruce Boyden (Marquette Law) & Zahr Said (Santa Clara Law) As we mentioned in our previous post, the Ninth Circuit’s intrinsic-extrinsic framework for substantial similarity has a number of problems. Those problems include confusing terminology, misuse of the terms “objective” and…
The Fifth Circuit Does Fifth Circuit Things in Copyright Embedding Case–Emmerich v. Particle
Here is a real-time video of me trying to read any new Fifth Circuit opinion on Internet Law: Odds are that the outcome will be terrible; and even if not, the reasoning will be 100% cringe. * * * This…
Snap Wants to be a State Actor??–Kansas v. Snap
For decades, private Internet services have uniformly tried to avoid being legally characterized as government actors. If they become state actors, they must comply with Constitutional restrictions–meaning the Constitutionally required freedoms of speech and press would extend to their user-authors…
Op-Ed: Meta’s $5 Billion Deal with the State AGs to Take Down its Rivals
[This op-ed was first published by the San Jose Mercury News on Sept. 18, 2026.] Meta’s settlement with the state attorneys general has been touted as industry-redefining. Indeed, Meta desperately hopes it will be. Although Meta was the only industry…
Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg: All About That Intrinsic Test? (Guest Blog Post)
by guest bloggers Bruce Boyden (Marquette Law) & Zahr Said (Santa Clara Law) On June 9, the Ninth Circuit granted rehearing en banc in Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg, agreeing to reconsider the test for infringement first adopted in Sid &…