2021 Emoji Law Year-in-Review
A recap of emoji law developments in 2021: Court References I maintain a dataset of US court opinions that reference emojis and emoticons. I have compiled the dataset using keyword alerts in Westlaw and Lexis, supplemented by a few opinions…
Background Reports Protected by Section 230–Dennis v. MyLife
Plaintiffs sued MyLife for selling background reports about them and furnishing “public reputation scores.” MyLife aggregates its data from third-party sources, but the plaintiffs “seek to hold Defendant liable for packaging and re-publishing this information on its website without their…
Twitter Can’t Quash a 512(h) Subpoena
This case involves the Twitter account “@CallMeMoneyBags,” a pseudonymous account. In October 2020, the user posted 6 tweets attacking Brian Sheth, a private equity billionaire, that included photos “depicting a woman or portions of a woman’s body.” The opinion doesn’t…
Catching Up on the 11th Circuit Appeal in NetChoice v. Moody Over Florida’s Social Media Censorship Law
As you recall, earlier this year Florida passed SB 7072, a brazenly censorial #MAGA bill. The district court enjoined the law, and Florida appealed to the 11th Circuit. In my last post, I recapped Florida’s appeal brief and the supporting…
Retweets Didn’t Reset Defamation Statute of Limitations–Crosswhite v. Reuters
Benjamin Crosswhite traveled in Jerry Falwell Jr.’s orbit. Reuters published allegedly defamatory stories about Crosswhite in August and September 2019. Crosswhite sued Reuters for defamation in March 2021. Virginia has a 1 year statute of limitations (SOL), which had a…
Fifth Circuit Issues an Important Online Jurisdiction Ruling–Johnson v. HuffPost
This is the most interesting Internet personal jurisdiction opinion I’ve read in years. I know that sounds like damning with faint praise, because many of you cannot find much enthusiasm about any jurisdiction ruling. Well, get excited about this one….
Recipes Aren’t Copyrightable, No Matter How “Exciting” They Are–Coscarelli v. Esquared
This case involves vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli, the first vegan to win Food Network’s Cupcake Wars. That win made her a legend in the vegan community, and she has parlayed her fame into some great vegan cookbooks. She also connected…
Competitive Keyword Advertising Claim Fails–Reflex Media v. Luxy
The plaintiff runs Seeking Arrangements. The defense runs Luxy, a competitor. Earlier this year, I blogged a ruling holding that Seeking Arrangements’ trademark infringement claim against Luxy could proceed because Luxy included Seeking Arrangements’ purported trademarks in its keyword metatags….
Antitrust Law Doesn’t Prevent Apple From Rejecting Apps From Its App Store–Coronavirus Reporter v. Apple
This case involves two apps that Apple rejected from its app store. The Coronavirus Reporter app “sought to collect ‘bioinformatics data’ from users about COVID-19 symptoms that it would then share with ‘other users and [unidentified] epidemiology researchers.’” Sounds sketchy…
New York Court Is the Wrong Venue for UK GDPR Class Action–Finch v. Xandr
Maybe I’ve missed other cases in this genre, but I don’t recall seeing them. Xandr self-describes as “the only open, end-to-end platform for scaled, sophisticated campaigns on premium inventory across screens on premium inventory from CTV to data-driven linear and…