Santa Clara-Duke-USPTO Quality Conferences / Call for Participants
[Note: my colleague Colleen Chien has circulated this call for participation. I won’t be directly involved in either event, but they look terrific. I’m sharing it here in case you or someone in your network wants to participate. Please follow…
Proposed EU Regulation on Cross-Border Access to Copyrighted Content (Guest Blog Post)
by Guest Blogger Marketa Trimble When the European Commission issued its initial documents (here and here) in May 2015 regarding the Single Digital Market and geoblocking on the internet, the tone of the documents, and in particular their apparent vilification…
Q1 2016 Quick Links, Part 4 (Copyright, Marketing and More)
Copyright * Naruto v. Slater: “Naruto is not an “author” within the meaning of the Copyright Act.” I heart Naruto! * Handshoe v. Abel, 1:14-cv-00159-KS-MTP (S.D. Miss. Jan. 8, 2016) (cites omitted): Given that there is no dispute that the…
Q1 2016 Quick Links, Part 3 (DOJ v. Apple, ISIS, Censorship & More)
Surveillance * The whole Apple v. DOJ fracas was insane! NY Times: In Nod to Law Enforcement, Obama Ends Attempt to Straddle Privacy Divide. Vice: Obama’s Call for Encryption ‘Compromise’ Is Hypocritical. NY Times: For Apple, a Search for a…
Sketchy Suit Between Native Advertising Competitors Produces Sketchy Section 230 Ruling–Adblade v. RevContent
This case is filled with sketchiness. First, the litigants compete in the “native advertising industry,” which doesn’t have a great reputation (and this lawsuit isn’t likely to improve it). Second, the ads in question promote wrinkle creams, diet pills and…
Q1 2016 Quick Links, Part 2 (Online Jurisdiction)
Oh yay, an entire quick links post dedicated to online jurisdiction! * Kindig It Design, Inc. v. Creative Controls, Inc., 2016 WL 247574 (D. Utah. Jan. 20, 2016) Furthermore, maintaining an interactive website is no longer the sole purview of…
Q1 2016 Quick Links, Part 1 (Trademarks and Domain Names)
* Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences v. GoDaddy.com, Inc., 2015 WL 5311085 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 10, 2015). A major win for GoDaddy—and domain name parking programs generally—against a long-running cybersquatting suit by the Motion Picture Academy. This ruling…
Alleged “Conspiracy” Among Disgruntled Ex-Employees Defeats Section 230–Tanisha v. Chandra
[Note: as I’ve mentioned before, sometimes Westlaw randomly spits out cases months after they were issued. This opinion is 4 months old but just appeared in my Westlaw alerts this week. Despite its age, I’m blogging it because of its…
Amazon Defeats Publicity Rights Lawsuit Over ‘A Gronking To Remember’ Book Cover (Forbes Cross-Post)
Greg McKenna writes as a woman using the pen name Lacey Noonan. In 2014, McKenna wrote the book “A Gronking to Remember,” an erotic “fan fiction” book about New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski. He self-published the book digitally…
Big Win For Free Speech Online In Backpage Lawsuit (Forbes Cross-Post)
Regulators and plaintiffs have been trying to eradicate online prostitution ads for a decade. These efforts have been partially hampered by 47 U.S.C. 230 (Section 230), a law Congress enacted in 1996 to protect websites from liability for third party…