It Turns Out You Can’t “Sue the CDA”–Fyk v. US
Jason Fyk’s recent litigation campaign reminds me of the classic story Moby Dick, with Fyk in the Captain Ahab role and Section 230 as his white whale. The Netflix documentary of his story will be called “Moby Fyk.” In his…
California’s Proposed Fix to the Journalism Crisis Is Unconstitutional and Worse Than Socialism (Comments on the California Journalism Protection Act, CJPA)
The California legislature is competing with states like Florida and Texas to see who can pass laws will be more devastating to the Internet. California’s latest entry into this Internet death-spiral is the California Journalism Protection Act (CJPA, AB 886)….
Resolving Conflicts Between Trademark and Free Speech Rights After Jack Daniel’s v. VIP Products (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Lisa P. Ramsey [Lisa P. Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law. She writes and teaches in the trademark law area, and recently wrote a paper with Professor Christine…
U.S. Supreme Court Vindicates Photographer But Destabilizes Fair Use — Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (Guest Blog Post)
[Eric’s note: this is the post you’ve been waiting for: Prof. Ochoa’s definitive analysis of the Supreme Court’s Warhol opinion. This post is 11,000+ words long, so you may want to block out some time to enjoy this properly.] By…
Politician-Operated Social Media Accounts Raise Many Thorny Legal Issues
In February, Justice Kagan joked that the Supreme Court justices “are not the nine greatest experts on the Internet.” That is certainly true–for example, the justices cannot publicly engage in ordinary social media interactions–yet the justices are getting a crash…
The 9th Circuit Keeps Trying to Ruin Cybersecurity–Enigma v. Malwarebytes
This case involves two anti-threat software vendors, Enigma and Malwarebytes. In 2016, Malwarebytes classified Enigma’s software as “malicious,” a “threat,” and a “potentially unwanted program” (or PUP), because the programs allegedly were “scareware.” Enigma challenged Malwarebytes’ classifications in court. Initially,…
How Can AI Models Legally Obtain Training Data?–Doe 1 v. GitHub (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Doe 1 v. GitHub, Inc. is one of the first major class-action lawsuits to dive into questions of online collection of “public data” and generative AI training data sets. Given the importance of generative AI…
Of Course Section 230 Applies to Amazon Reviews–McCall v. Zotos
This case involves a customer’s Amazon review asserting that a merchant sold fake goods. The merchant sued Amazon (pro se) for defamation based on the review. The 11th Circuit easily dismisses the claim per Section 230. ICS Provider. “Amazon’s website…
Test Buys Don’t Create Personal Jurisdiction Over Amazon Merchant–Oceanside v. Instock
Blogging personal jurisdiction cases isn’t that much fun for me. Nevertheless, this ruling caught my eye. This is an enforcement action over the trademark “Detoxify.” (I’m skipping the obvious trademarkability problems with a descriptive word like this). The defendant is…
Section 230 Ends Another Suspended Twitter User’s Lawsuit–Zhang v. Twitter
I’m blogging this ruling mostly for completeness. I’ve blogged so many pro se lawsuits by suspended Twitter users and they all end the same. This one doesn’t break any new ground. Apparently, the plaintiff Taiming Zhang used his Twitter account…