Q2 2016 Quick Links, Part 5 (Miscellaneous)
E-Commerce/Sharing Economy * Reuters: EU cautions governments against banning Uber, Airbnb * Needle Inc. v. Department of Workforce Services, 2016 WL 1729547 (Utah Ct. App. April 28, 2016). Finding that product advocates, who did online customer chatting on an ad…
“Modified Clickwrap” Upheld In Court–Moule v. UPS
[Eric’s introduction: today Venkat and I are “celebrating” (?) TOS Arbitration Day here at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog. Independently, we each drafted blog posts about arbitration clauses in terms of service–covering different cases! We could have combined the…
Ted Cruz’s Presidential Campaign Apparently Committed Copyright Infringement. Oops.
I know it may be my own idiosyncratic and romanticized view of governance, but I hold politicians to a higher standard when it comes to knowing, and complying with, the law. After all, if the people in charge of making…
Section 230 Protects YouTube’s Removal of User’s Videos–Lancaster v. Alphabet
This is one of those pro se cases where the court isn’t sure what the plaintiff is complaining about, so I apologize if my parsing is garbled as well. The court expends the most energy on the plaintiff’s allegation that…
Vimeo’s Second Circuit DMCA Safe Harbor Win Over Capitol Records
This is an important DMCA safe harbor opinion. It’s from the Second Circuit, an influential court, and it extends the Second Circuit’s 2012 key Viacom v. YouTube ruling in important ways. Still, the DMCA safe harbors remain defectively designed, and…
Q2 2016 Quick Links, Part 4 (Marketing, Privacy, Contracts)
Advertising/Marketing * Google will no longer run ads for payday lenders. * GALA: Brazil Enacts New Ambush Marketing Laws in Advance of Rio 2016 Olympic Games * Slate: The Do Not Call list was supposed to defeat telemarketers. Now scammy…
Employees Bound By Clickthrough Agreements–ADP v. Lynch
An employer sued two departing employees for joining a competitor. The employer sought to enforce, among other things, a non-compete clause (the court calls it a restrictive covenant). The employer included the non-compete provision in stock option grant documentation presented…
Q2 2016 Quick Links, Part 3 (Defamation, Online Reviews, Section 230)
Defamation * Pritchard v. Van Nes, 2016 BCSC 686 (April 20, 2016): Ms. Van Nes was responsible for the defamatory comments of her [Facebook] “friends”. When the posts were printed off, on the afternoon of June 10th, her various replies…
Q2 2016 Quick Links, Part 2 (Terrorism Content, Hate Speech, Thiel/Gawker, Censorship & More)
Terrorism Content * Washington Post: “There’s a new tool to take down terrorism images online. But social media companies are wary of it.” For good reason. If all it takes to scrub content permanently is to deem it “terrorism content,”…
Q2 2016 Quick Links, Part 1 (Intellectual Property)
Copyright * Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin, No. CV 15-03462-RGK (AGRx) (C.D. Cal. June 23, 2016): Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven isn’t substantially similar to Spirit’s Taurus. The plaintiff’s lawyer explains why it was a loss for both sides. My Q:…