Courtney Love Defeats Twibel Claims–Holmes v. Love
Courtney Love Cobain, tweeting with two twitter users (“fairnewsspears” and “noozjunkie”), stated she: was fucking devasted when Rhonda J. Holmes, Esquire, of San Diego was bought off @FairNewsSpears perhaps you can get a quote Holmes was a lawyer who had…
Hacky Sacker’s Publicity Rights Claim Against Energy Drink Tossed–Martin v. 5-Hour Energy Drink
Johannes (Ted) Martin was (and is currently) the world record holder for “most consecutive kicks (no knees)” of a hackysack. A five hour energy drink made an advertisement depicting an unknown actor claiming he performed several superhuman tasks, including breaking…
Ninth Circuit Resolves Two of the Facebook Sponsored Stories Lawsuits
The litigation over Facebook’s sponsored stories occurred what seems like eons ago. Recently, the last of it wrapped up (although the latest ruling is the subject of a petition for rehearing en banc). It generated lots of blog fodder, and…
Google Can Derive Undisclosed Economic Benefits From CAPTCHAs–Rojas-Lozano v. Google
This lawsuit alleges that Google benefits unfairly from consumers’ responses to Google’s CAPTCHA. Plaintiff, a Massachusetts resident, responded to a two word CAPTCHA prompt when signing up for a Gmail accout. She alleged that only one of the two words…
It’s Not Harassment To Talk Tough About Your Court Case (And Litigation Opponent) In Social Media
David and Textor are involved in litigation around their companies, which make holographic performances of dead famous musicians (most famously, for example, MJ and Tupac). David’s company sued Textor’s for patent infringement, and in a separate lawsuit, Textor’s sued David’s…
Posting Mocking Photo To Social Media May Be Tortious….If You’re Shaq–Binion v. O’Neal
Jahmel Binion alleges that Shaquille O’Neal posted to Instagram and Twitter a picture of him that portrayed Binion in a derogatory capacity. Binion suffers from a skin disease that left him disfigured. Shaq posted a picture of Binion side-by-side with…
Oculus Faces Messy Ownership Claims Over Its Head Mounted Display–Total Recall v. Luckey
Palmer Luckey, who ultimately developed the much-hyped Oculus Rift, entered into an agreement with a company called “Total Recall”. Although it was not crystal clear, the agreement was technically with Thomas Seidl, one of the partners of Total Recall. The…
More Data Breach Lawsuits Fail In Court–Michaels Stores and SuperValu
Courts recently dismissed more data breach lawsuits for failure to allege harm. Michael Stores: Michaels confirmed that consumer account information had been compromised and acknowledged that approximately 2.6 million cards could have been affected between 2013 and 2014. It offered…
Big Fish’s Virtual Casino Doesn’t Violate Washington’s Gambling Statute
Eric and Angie blogged about the Machine Zone slot machine ruling from Maryland. This is a similar lawsuit brought against Big Fish, alleging that Big Fish’s virtual casino violates Washington’s anti-gambling statute. (Here’s a Recorder article covering these and other…
Shutterfly Can’t Shake Face-Scanning Privacy Lawsuit
A putative class action accuses Shutterfly of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The plaintiff, who is not a Shutterfly user, alleges that, when an identified Shuttterfly user uploaded pictures of plaintiff, Shutterfly created a “face scan” using the…