Texan J6er’s Social Media Censorship Case Moved to California–Davis v. Facebook
Paul Davis is a lawyer and a self-described “J6er,” i.e., a participant in the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection. (His current Instagram bio: “God-fearing, freedom-fighting, ultra-MAGA🔥⬆️TX lawyer for patriots ✝️⚖️🇺🇸 J6er”). His legacy Facebook and Instagram accounts got suspended…
A Single Emoji Could Constitute Securities Fraud–In re Bed Bath & Beyond
This case involves Ryan Cohen, who made a fortune running Chewy.com and then switched his interests to meme stocks. He bought a 9% interest in the failing retailer Bed Bath and Beyond, hyped the stock, and then liquidated his position,…
Chegg Is Likely to Prevail on Its Anti-Scraping Contracts Claim…But Doesn’t Get an Injunction–Chegg v. Doe (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Most web-scraping cases fit into one of two categories: Cases where companies are innovating with data in ways that data hosts/owners don’t like, and courts try to accommodate competing interests in accordance with prevailing legal…
Ninth Circuit Highlights the Messy Law of Contributory Trademark Infringement Online–YYGM v. RedBubble
Redbubble provides an online marketplace for print-on-demand items. Unlike other print-on-demand vendors, Redbubble outsources everything but the marketing and payment processing functions. Third-party user-merchants upload the images; third-party contract manufacturers and other vendors make and ship the ordered items. This…
DC Circuit Upholds FOSTA’s Constitutionality (By Narrowing It)–Woodhull v. U.S.
FOSTA is terrible social policy that hurt multiple communities without clearly benefiting any community, but its bad results don’t automatically make it unconstitutional. In response to a facial constitutional challenge to FOSTA, the DC Circuit upheld the law after making…
Amazon Can Freely End Book Reviewer’s Authoring Privileges–Haywood v. Amazon
Charles Haywood wrote book reviews at Amazon. He says “his style tends to be megalomaniacal and apocalyptic. He likes to fight.” (For more, see this story and his own self-analysis using Jordan Peterson’s personality test 🙄). No thank you. For what…
An E-Commerce Site Tried to Form Its TOS Three Different Ways. None of Them Worked–Chabolla v. ClassPass
The plaintiffs claim they signed up for a ClassPass membership but got unexpectedly auto-renewed. (ClassPass appears to be an aggregator of third-party fitness classes). ClassPass sought to send the case to arbitration based on its TOS, which it attempted to…
Contractual Control over Information Goods after ML Genius v. Google (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Prof. Guy Rub, The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law The copyright – contract tension Stewart Brand famously said that information wants to be free. We know, however, that many laws limit free access…
Trademark Extraterritoriality: Abitron v. Hetronic Doesn’t Go the Distance (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Bloggers Margaret Chon and Christine Haight Farley [Margaret Chon is a Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law, and Christine Haight Farley is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law.] In one…
Armslist Defeats Lawsuits Over Illegal Gun Sales (Without Section 230’s Help)–Webber v. Armslist
Armslist publishes users’ classified ads for guns. Two estates sued Armslist for allegedly facilitating illegal gun sales that led to murders. My blog post on the district court rulings. Section 230’s availability in such situations is uncertain, but on appeal,…