Instagramming For Freebies? Those Photos Are Ads…To The FTC (Forbes Cross-Post)
Wouldn’t it be sweet if someone gave you a free helicopter ride, a free 3 year lease for a Mercedes-Benz car, or a free trip to Iceland? As recounted in this recent New York Times article (“Your Instagram Picture, Worth…
The New U.K. Online Gambling Law: Cyberlaw 3.0 – or a Return to Cyberlaw 2.0? (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Marketa Trimble The new amendments to the U.K. gambling law in the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 will take effect on November 1, 2014, following a U.K. judge’s rejection of a challenge to the validity of…
Food Flavor Can’t Be Trademarked (Even If The Baked Ziti Is Delicious)–NY Pizzeria v. Syal (Forbes Cross-Post)
You may remember the advertising campaign for Coke Zero from almost a decade ago. The gag is that Coke Zero allegedly tasted so much like “real” Coke that one division of Coca-Cola threatened to sue another division for “taste infringement.”…
Congress Is Considering A New Federal Trade Secret Law. Why? (Forbes Cross-Post)
[Two brief introductory notes: (1) the trade secret bills have been dormant in Congress pending the November elections, but don’t rule out the possibility of them roaring back immediately thereafter, and (2) I have uploaded an expanded version of this…
Q3 2014 Quick Links, Part 2 (Content Regulation)
* United States v. Valle, 2014 WL 2980256 (S.D.N.Y. June 30, 2014). The highly unusual facts of this case reflect the Internet age in which we live. To prove the kidnapping conspiracy alleged in Count One, the Government relied on…
Call for Papers/Participation, 5th Annual Internet Law Work-in-Progress Conference, SCU, March 7, 2015
We invite your participation in the Fifth Annual Internet Law Work-in-Progress conference at Santa Clara University School of Law on March 7, 2015. The conference series is co-sponsored by the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of…
Q3 2014 Quick Links, Part 1 (RTBF, Reviews, IP & More)
Right to Be Forgotten * U.S. Attitudes Toward the ‘Right to Be Forgotten’: 1. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe some version of the right to be forgotten is necessary. 2. Thirty-nine percent want a European-style blanket right to be forgotten,…
A Seismic Ruling On Pre-1972 Sound Recordings and State Copyright Law–Flo & Eddie v. Sirius XM Radio (Guest Blog Post)
By Tyler Ochoa [Eric’s intro: in Tyler’s cover email to me, he told me the ruling was “huge, as in 1906-San-Francisco-earthquake huge. It literally could result in undoing 75 years of copyright history.”] A federal court in California has held…
Congress May Crack Down On Businesses’ Efforts To Ban Consumer Reviews (Forbes Cross-Post)
Imagine a dentist telling her patients that they can’t write online reviews about her. Or a hotel deducting money from a newly married couple’s security deposit if any member of the wedding party blasts the hotel on Yelp. These types…
Trademark Owners Just Can’t Win Keyword Advertising Cases–EarthCam v. OxBlue
I have repeatedly observed that trademark owners routinely lose their lawsuits against advertisers who buy their trademarks as advertising keywords. (This is in addition to the futility of bringing trademark lawsuits against search engines, which almost no one does any…