Happy (?) Anniversary, Grokster v. MGM
By Eric Goldman Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of the Grokster Supreme Court ruling. This opinion was one of the most hotly anticipated Supreme Court opinions relating to copyrights (and perhaps any subject matter) of the last decade or…
CDT Report on Spyware Enforcement Actions
By Eric Goldman The Center for Democracy & Technology has provided a public service by releasing its report, “Spyware Enforcement.” The report describes, in table format, various federal and state enforcement actions against spyware purveyors. The report summarizes the action:…
June 2006 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman I have had virtually no Internet access over the past 10 days due to my move and travels, so my Bloglines account was bulging with more than 1700 articles. Here’s a quick look at some of the…
Google Child Porn Lawsuit Withdrawn–Toback v. Google
By Eric Goldman Sensing that his 15 minutes of fame was up, Jeffrey Toback has withdrawn his lawsuit against Google regarding Google’s alleged facilitation of child pornography. This withdrawal is hardly surprising given the lawsuit’s complete lack of merit. Nevertheless,…
Fair Use Network Launches
By Eric Goldman An intriguing new resource, the Fair Use Network, has launched. This website is a project of the Free Expression Policy Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. This is the same group…
Music File in P2P Share Directory May Be a Distribution–Interscope v. Duty
By Eric Goldman Interscope Records v. Duty, No. 05-CV-3744-PHX-FJM (D. Ariz. Apr. 14, 2006) Introduction The number of P2P direct infringement opinions is growing, and the news isn’t good for file sharers. The flagship case is BMG v. Gonzalez, where…
Congress to Make Search Engine Bias Illegal?
By Eric Goldman Like we couldn’t see this coming. To make the point that the content providers are playing with fire, one member of Congress has proposed to sweep them into the Net Neutrality legislation (see the text). Ha ha….
“Must Carry” Lawsuit Against Search Engines–Langdon v. Google
By Eric Goldman Langdon v. Google, 1:06-cv-00319-JJF (D. Delaware complaint filed May 17, 2006) Omigosh, will these lawsuits over search engine editorial discretion ever cease? Earlier this week I reported on (yet another) lawsuit against Google for dropping a website…
Google Avoids Another Lawsuit Over Rankings (For Now)–Roberts v. Google
By Eric Goldman Roberts v. Google, No. 1-06-CV-063047 (Cal. Superior Ct. complaint filed May 5, 2006 but voluntarily dismissed) In what he claims is the “first legitimate complaint vs google regarding search result issues,” Mark Roberts, a proprietor of two…
Denver IP Summit Presentation
By Eric Goldman I attended the Denver Summit on Intellectual Property and Digital Media. The audience was principally cable industry participants, but there were plenty of content creators (and legal academics) in attendance. I spoke about the various ways that…