Another 47 USC 230 Case, Another Defense Win–Fair Housing Council v. Roommate.com
By Eric Goldman Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate.com, LLC, 2005 WL 3299077 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 30, 2005) [actually 2004–see below] I’m not sure why this case took so long to hit Westlaw [see below for explanation]….
Keeping C&D Letters Confidential
By Eric Goldman An all-too-familiar story. A famous celebrity takes her clothes off in a private outdoor space (in this case, Jennifer Aniston goes topless in her backyard). The paparazzi captures the event for posterity and profit. Celebrity finds out…
Yale Regulating Search? Conference Recap
By Eric Goldman I attended the Regulating Search? conference at Yale Law School this weekend. This post contains the notes I took at the conference. A couple of meta-observations: * almost everyone on the various panels spoke against government regulation….
Wikipedia Will Fail Within 5 Years
By Eric Goldman Over the weekend I had dinner with Mike Godwin, one of the most significant influencers of the development of Cyberlaw and a longtime friend. Mike and I were discussing Wikipedia, the community-edited and -maintained encyclopedia. I like…
New Metatag/SEO Lawsuit–Salu, Inc. v. Pitts
By Eric Goldman Salu, Inc. v. Pitts (E.D. Ca. complaint filed Nov. 17, 2005). Introduction Salu operates skinstore.com, a website that sells skin care products. (With that name, I was totally expecting to find a porn site, but the website…
Microsoft Will Be an Adware Vendor
By Eric Goldman Microsoft is considering migrating some of its software titles to an ad-supported model instead of a consumer licensing fee model. This isn’t exactly a new idea–this development has been anticipated for at least a decade. However, if…
Supreme Court Denies 1-800 Contacts Cert Petition
By Eric Goldman Today the US Supreme Court denied 1-800 Contacts’ petition for certiorari of the second circuit opinion in 1-800 Contacts v. WhenU. I’m not surprised by the denial, but the bigger question is–now what for 1-800 Contacts’ campaign…
Wheel PTO Examiner Profiled
By Eric Goldman Washington Post runs an amusing but surprisingly insightful story about the PTO’s chief examiner of wheel and axle patents, Russell Stormer. One would think that after 5,500 years, there would be few new inventions in the world…
DMCA Online Safe Harbor Empirical Study by Urban and Quilter
By Eric Goldman Jennifer Urban of USC and Laura Quilter have released a working report entitled “Efficient Process or “Chilling Effects”? Takedown Notices Under Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” To my knowledge, this is the first empirical…
Texas AG Sues Sony Under State Anti-Spyware Law
By Eric Goldman Texas v. Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Tx. Dist. Ct. complaint filed Nov. 21, 2005). From a legal standpoint, today wasn’t a good day for Sony. In addition to being sued by the EFF, Texas decided to join…