Announcing the 2016 Edition of ‘Internet Law: Cases & Materials’
I’m pleased to announce this year’s edition of my Internet Law casebook, Internet Law: Cases & Materials. It’s available for sale as a PDF at Gumroad for $8, as a Kindle book for $9.99, and in hard copy at CreateSpace…
Supreme Court Revisits Copyright’s Attorney Fee Shifts–Kirtsaeng v. Wiley
The Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 505, has a discretionary “loser-pays” attorneys’ fee shift. We’ve blogged repeatedly about abusive copyright enforcements where that fee shift provides a modicum of fairness to defendants (e.g., Inglewood v. Teixeira; Katz v. Chevaldina; Righthaven v….
Review Website Gets Hammered In Court–Consumer Cellular v. ConsumerAffairs
This is not a good opinion for the review website industry. However, the court’s harshest treatment turns on the idiosyncratic practices of ConsumerAffairs.com, which set a key Fourth Circuit Section 230 precedent in 2009 but whose current business practices probably…
Scraping Lawsuit Survives Dismissal Motion–CouponCabin v. Savings.com
We blog pretty much every scraping case we see; we just don’t see many of them. As I’ve told you before, scraping is ubiquitous but of dubious legality. Today’s case reiterates just how hard it is for scrapers to win…
Yelp Forced To Remove Defamatory Reviews–Hassell v. Bird
[Warning: Brutally ugly opinion and long blog post ahead] The evisceration of Section 230 continues. Yesterday I explained that the last 12 months have been tough for Section 230 jurisprudence. Today’s opinion is worse than *all* of the cases I…
WTF Is Going On With Section 230?–Cross v. Facebook
It’s been a tough year for Section 230. In one case after another, I’ve had to “explain away” Section 230 losses: * Doe #14 v. ModelMayhem. The 9th Circuit embraced a dubious “failure to warn” exception to Section 230. *…
De Minimis Music Sampling Isn’t Infringement–Salsoul v. Madonna
There are several alternative tests for gauging “substantial similarity” in copyright cases. The flagship test is the “ordinary observer” test, but variations include the (baffling) extrinsic/intrinsic test and the abstraction-filtration-comparison test. With respect to sampling sound recordings, the Sixth Circuit’s…
Section 230 Baffles 9th Circuit (Again)–Doe #14 v. ModelMayhem
Why does the Ninth Circuit find Section 230 so baffling? Several of its precedential Section 230 rulings have been angst-fests. Roommates.com required a 3 opinion ruling from a 3 judge panel, then an internally inconsistent en banc ruling, then a…
Some Thoughts on Thiel’s Lawfare Against Gawker
By now you’ve heard that Peter Thiel, a well-known Silicon Valley billionaire, has been waging a lawfare campaign against Gawker. The New York Times described his modus operandi: he retained a legal team to watch for cases against Gawker, then…
WARNING: Copyright Office Resurrects Troubling Plan To Strip Websites Of 512 Safe Harbor
The Copyright Office has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding a new electronic submission process for websites and online services to designate agents to receive 512(c)(3) copyright takedown notices. The agent designation process is crucial to the 17…