Ripoff Report Sues Blogger, Loses on Jurisdictional Grounds–Xcentric Ventures v. Bird
By Eric Goldman Xcentric Ventures, LLC v. Bird, 2010 WL 447759 (D. Ariz. Feb. 3, 2010). See the initial complaint. I usually find personal jurisdiction rulings mind-numbingly uninteresting, so I try my best to avoid them. However, some personal jurisdiction…
Catching Up With Wikipedia
By Eric Goldman I recently posted the final published version of my article Wikipedia’s Labor Squeeze and its Consequences. In the course of updating the draft, I reviewed the news coverage of Wikipedia from the second half of 2009, and…
Third Circuit Schizophrenia Over Student Discipline for Fake MySpace Profiles
By Eric Goldman J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District, 2010 WL 376186 (3rd Cir. Feb. 4, 2010) Layshock v. Hermitage School District, 2010 WL 376184 (3rd Cir. Feb. 4, 2010) Now that I’m a middle-aged man, I don’t find fake…
January 2010 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Copyright * An English translation of Google’s December loss in France on a Google Book Search lawsuit. * Ed Felten reports on a survey of files available via BitTorrent. Acknowledging some methodological limits, he estimates ~99% were…
Google and China: Some General Thoughts
By Eric Goldman I have deferred blogging on the Google/China imbroglio for a few reasons. First, heavyweights such as Jonathan Zittrain have tracked International online censorship and online security issues more closely than I have. Second, after Google’s provocative blog…
File Names Can Help Predict File Content in Child Porn Prosecution–US v. Beatty
By Eric Goldman United States v. Beatty, 2009 WL 5220643 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 31, 2009) This is a child porn prosecution. Using Phex P2P software, an undercover investigator accessed the Gnutella network and conducted searches using search terms known to…
Top Cyberlaw Developments of 2009 (Eric’s List)
By Eric Goldman Guest blogger John Ottaviani recently dropped by to offer his perspectives on 2009’s top Cyberlaw developments. While I like his list a lot, I independently developed my own top 10 list that has a different emphasis. You…
November-December 2009 Quick Links, Part 2
By Eric Goldman Copyright * Want Ad Digest Inc. v. Display Advertising Inc. (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 3, 2009). A classified ads publisher wants to stop a competitor from republishing its classified ads. The court said that advertisers, not the publisher, generally…
Top Cyberlaw Developments of 2009
By John E. Ottaviani (Thanks to Eric for letting me post this list here!) [Eric’s note: some of you may recall John, a regular blog guest contributor from 2005-07. It’s great to have another contribution from him.] Eric will post…
Denver University “Cyber Civil Rights” Symposium Recap
By Eric Goldman The week before Thanksgiving, I attended an unusual symposium sponsored by the University of Denver Law Review entitled “Cyber Civil Rights: New Challenges for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in our Networked Age.” The symposium covered standard…