Use of Iconic 9-11 Photo in TV Show’s Facebook Stream Not Fair Use
Plaintiff owns an iconic 9-11 photo. A producer of Defendants Fox News and Jeanine Pirro’s television show posted an image consisting of the 9-11 image juxtaposed with the iconic World War II photograph of Marines raising the flag at Iwo…
Hoang v. IMDb Argued in the Ninth Circuit
Hoang vs. IMDb, a case we’ve covered closely on the blog, had oral arguments before the Ninth Circuit panel last Friday. The appeal focused on several procedural issues, such as: whether the district court improperly placed the burden on Hoang to…
No Spam Lawsuit When Plaintiff Asked For The Emails–Beyond v. Kraft
Beyond Systems initiated this spam lawsuit. The court characterizes Beyond Systems as (barely) an internet service provider. Beyond was owned by Paul Wagner and its servers were kept at his parents’ Maryland residence. As mentioned by the court, not only…
Lawsuit Fails Over Ridesharing Service’s Disclosures To Its Analytics Service–Garcia v. Zimride
Plaintiff sued Lyft (and others) over privacy violations based on the allegedly improper disclosure of user information by the Zimride service. He alleged that he used the Zimride service, once owned by Lyft and now owned by Enterprise Holdings, and his…
Court Rejects VPPA Claim Against Viacom and Google Based on Failure to Disclose Identity
I blogged before about the privacy lawsuit against Viacom and Google over the disclosure of the viewing habits of minors. The court previously rejected the claims on the basis that the disclosure of user attributes (such as demographic information, unique…
Vonage Isn’t Liable For Disclosing ‘Unlisted’ Phone Number
Miller is a psychologist who undertakes efforts to keep his phone number unlisted. As part of his work, he evaluated the mental health of criminal defendants. (For various reasons, his family wished to keep the number unlisted as well). He…
Police Officer’s Facebook Post Criticizing Chief’s Budget Decision Justified Termination–Graziosi v. Greenville
This is an appeal involving a police officer who was fired for criticizing the chief and a budget decision he made. Specifically, the chief decided to not make available official transport so that officers could travel to attend the funeral…
Safeway Can’t Unilaterally Modify Online Terms Without Notice
This is a lawsuit against Safeway alleging that it charges slightly different (and higher) prices for items ordered online than purchased in-store. The court previously denied Safeway’s motion to dismiss and now grants summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs on…
Employee Terminated For Ill-Advised Facebook Post Gets Unemployment Benefits
This is an unemployment benefits case. Sarah Black, who was employed by Puget Sound Security Patrol made the following post to her Facebook account in February 2012: u kno wat, I do not give a f[* * *] about a…
Facebook May be On the Hook for Scanning Private Messages for Links
This is a privacy lawsuit against Facebook: Plaintiffs allege that Facebook scans the content of their private messages, and if there is a link to a web page contained in that message, Facebook treats it as a “like” of the…