Q2 2015 Quick Links, Part 2 (Censorship and More)
Content Regulation * Oxera: The economic impact of safe harbours on Internet intermediary start-ups * South Korea is mandating that all cellphones sold to minors have an app called “Smart Sheriff” that censors their online experience. What could possibly go…
Q2 2015 Quick Links, Part 1 (IP, Marketing and More)
Copyright * The dominant media storyline about the Mayweather-Pacquiao boxing match was the fight’s widespread illicit availability on the livestreaming apps Periscope and Meerkat. But this should have been the dominant storyline instead: An estimated 4.4 million viewers paid a…
Competitive Keyword Advertising Permitted As Nominative Use–ElitePay Global v. CardPaymentOptions
I know, it’s getting repetitive blogging about competitive keyword advertising cases failing in court. But trademark owners keep bringing them, so I’ll keep blogging them. The Ruling The trademark owner does business as ElitePay Global. It provides “merchant payment solutions…
Section 230(c)(2) Gets No Luv From the Courts–Song Fi v. Google
This is one of several pending cases where a video poster sues YouTube for allegedly wrongful takedown of the video. I find these cases fascinating because I always wonder how there’s enough money at issue to justify litigation. Unfortunately, I…
eBay Must Disclose User Identities In Response To 512(h) Subpoenas
Barry Rosen is a photographer (especially of dogs) and repeat copyright enforcer (see, e.g., our previous coverage of his litigation here and here). His lawsuit against eBay produced an interesting 512 safe harbor ruling earlier this year. Meanwhile, eBay and…
Google And Yahoo Defeat Last Remaining Lawsuit Over Competitive Keyword Advertising (Forbes Cross-Post)
Keyword advertising using competitors’ trademarks is now so well-accepted, it may be hard to remember that the practice used to generate serious debate among lawyers and ethicists. In particular, the search engines drew substantial legal fire from trademark owners for…
Doing Online Reputation Management? Don’t Do It This Way (Forbes Cross-Post)
Recently, I got two identical emails from info@infringex.com sending me a “Notice of Infringement of Defamation.” The notice informs me that a 2012 blog post–written by my perma-guest blogger, Venkat–makes public comments about the purported sender. It further says that…
Online Magazine Gets Section 230 Protection For Third Party Article–AdvanFort v. International Registries
If I didn’t practice Internet law, I might have chosen maritime law. Their disputes are often interesting. This particular case sounds like a movie plotline. AdvanFort provides armed guards to ships worried about piracy (the real kind…you know, on the…
Can Lawyers Buy Keyword Ads On Each Others’ Names At Google? (Forbes Cross-Post)
“Competitive keyword advertising” occurs when a company buys the trademarks of its competition as keywords for search engine marketing. In the 2000s, it was one of the most interesting and hotly-contested issues of Internet Law as trademark owners filed many…
Ripoff Report Gets Easy Section 230 Win In Third Circuit–Obado v. Magedson
This was a really interesting pro se challenge to Section 230. The lower court opinion contained all kinds of gems, including holding that Section 230 applies to Google’s autocomplete and to allegations of search engine manipulation. The Third Circuit’s opinion…