Telephone Numbers as Identity Authenticators–Abrams v. Facebook
By Eric Goldman I think it’s interesting to read these two developments side-by-side: Development #1: Abrams v. Facebook, Inc., C07-05378 (N.D. Cal. complaint filed Oct. 22, 2007). A woman initiates a class action lawsuit against Facebook because Facebook’s users send…
Utah Trademark Protection Act Dying a Slow Death
By Eric Goldman As I reported before, the backroom negotiations over the Utah Trademark Protection Act have produced a compromise where Utah would still create a mark registry but there would no legal consequences to selling/purchasing a registered mark. Obviously,…
AOIR Regulating Virtual Worlds Panel, and My Notes on Investment Expectations in Virtual Worlds
By Eric Goldman Last week at AOIR’s annual meeting (AOIR 8.0) in Vancouver, Greg Lastowka, James Grimmelmann, Tyler Ochoa and I presented on the topic of regulation of virtual worlds. My notes from the presentations are below. See Mark Bell’s…
Ticketmaster Wins Big Injunction in Hannah Montana Case, But Did the Public Interest Get Screwed?–Ticketmaster v. RMG
By Eric Goldman Ticketmaster L.L.C. v. RMG Technologies, Inc., 2007 WL 2988403 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 16, 2007) You may remember Ticketmaster’s multi-year battle against Tickets.com over data aggregation and deep linking. Ticketmaster never got a solid win in that case,…
Online Trust Conference Recap
By Eric Goldman On October 2, Santa Clara University held a half-day conference called “Trust Online.” This event was co-sponsored by the Center for Science, Technology and Society, the High Tech Law Institute, the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and…
Roommates.com En Banc Rehearing GRANTED!
By Eric Goldman Terrific news from the Ninth Circuit this morning! They have granted an en banc hearing in the Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com case and (as their rules require) designated the prior opinion non-precedential. The full text of…
Bay Area Blawgers 2.0
By Eric Goldman The High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara Law School and Six Apart are pleased to announce Bay Area Blawgers 2.0, the second gathering of legal bloggers in the Bay Area. See a recap of the first…
230 Applies Even if Website Retains Content That Author Asked to Remove–Global Royalties v. Ripoff Report
By Eric Goldman Global Royalties, Ltd. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, 07-956-PHX-FJM (D. Ariz. Oct. 10, 2007) Surprise! Ripoff Report/Xcentric/badbusinessbureau/Magedson are in court again (I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve blogged on them–check here and do a find…
AFP v. Google News Redux–AP v. Moreover
By Eric Goldman Associated Press v. Moreover Technologies, Inc., 07 CIV 8699 (SDNY complaint filed Oct. 9, 2007) I don’t understand Moreover. From their website, they describe themselves as: the premier provider of real-time news, current awareness and business information,…
Pandora Founder Westergren Speaks at SCU
By Eric Goldman I *love* Internet radio. I typically listen to it all day long while I’m pounding out emails, articles and blog posts (like this one). I’ve tried a number of services, including Accuradio, Sky.fm and Last.fm. However, now…