Another Case Involving School Discipline for a Violent Post on a Social Networking Site — Wynar v. Douglas County School Dist.
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] Mynar v. Douglas County School Dist, 2013 WL 4566354 (9th Cir. Aug 29, 2013) [pdf] This is a school discipline case involving a student’s MySpace posts: • “its pretty simple / i have a sweet gun…
Big Victory In Effort To Curb Libel Tourism–Trout Point Lodge v. Handshoe (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Trout Point Lodge, Ltd. v. Handshoe, 2013 WL 4766530 (5th Cir. Sept. 5, 2013) Compared to other countries, the United States has relatively narrow defamation laws. The First Amendment significantly restricts defamation claims, and legislatures have provided…
High Schooler’s Facebook Post Can Constitute the Crime of Menacing – In re P.T.
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with comments by Eric] In the Matter of P.T., 2013 – Ohio- 3881 (Ohio Ct. App. Sept. 9, 2013) [pdf] This is another online threat case, this time involving online comments that constituted the crimes of…
When Should Search Engines Ignore Court Orders To Remove Search Results? (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Companies and individuals are constantly seeking more effective ways to scrub unwanted online content. One common technique is to get a court declaration that content is unlawful and should be removed, and then send that ruling to…
Yelp Gets Another Anti-SLAPP Victory in Lawsuit Over Consumer Review—Bernath v. Tabitha J.
Bernath v. Tabitha J., 1305-06167 (Ore. Cir. Ct. Aug. 26, 2013) The plaintiff, who is also a lawyer (and surely you recall how I feel about lawyer-plaintiffs), has repeatedly written about this case online focusing on different facts, but I’m…
TripAdvisor’s “Dirtiest Hotels” List Isn’t Defamatory—Seaton v. TripAdvisor
Seaton v. TripAdvisor LLC, 2013 WL 4525870 (6th Cir. Aug. 28, 2013) TripAdvisor published a list of the “Dirtiest Hotels” based on users’ rankings, including some unflattering quotes from users’ reviews. One of the listed hotels sued TripAdvisor for defamation…
App Stores Aren’t Liable For Third Party Apps–Evans v. HP (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Evans v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 2013 WL 4426359 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 15, 2013) Due to the growing importance of mobile devices, app stores are among the most powerful intermediaries in the Internet ecosystem. With great power comes great…
Blasting Your Landlord Online? Pick Your Words Wisely (Forbes Cross-Post)
By Eric Goldman Bently Reserve L.P. v. Papaliolios, 2013 WL 3949029 (Cal. App. Ct. July 30, 2013) Few things in life are more irritating than a bad landlord. Typically tenants are trapped by their lease, so they are powerless to…
Facebook Posting That Someone Has Herpes Is Criminal Harassment–Pennsylvania v. Cox
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani with a comment by Eric] Commonwealth v. Cox, 2013 PA Super 221 (Aug 2, 2013) [pdf] What is wrong with people? What were you thinking here, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania? Lindsey Marie Cox (age 18) posted the…
Recap of Stanford E-Commerce Conference Panel on Takedown Notices
By Eric Goldman Last month, I attended Stanford Law School’s annual E-commerce Law Conference, one of my favorite conferences of the year because of its subject material and the chance to hang out with so many friends. This year, the…