Online Defamation Action Can Have Only One Defendant–Novins v. Cannon
By Eric Goldman Novins v. Cannon, 2010 WL 1688695 (D. N.J. April 27, 2010). The CMLP page on Novins’ initial demand letter. The CMLP page on the lawsuit. An aborted lawsuit blog putatively by Novins. This is a defamation action…
“Mistake of Age” Defense When a Sexual Abuse Victim Inflated Her Age on MySpace
By Eric Goldman I continue to see a troubling number of cases in Westlaw that involve an overaged male and underaged female having illegal sex, in some case facilitated by a social networking site (especially MySpace). In the past few…
230 Protects Newspaper from Liability for Reader Comments–Collins v. Purdue
By Eric Goldman Collins v. Purdue University, 2010 WL 1250916 (N.D. Ind. March 24, 2010) The plaintiff, Timothy J. Collins, III, is a Purdue student. The defendant in this ruling is Federated Publications, which publishes a Lafayette, Indiana daily newspaper,…
March 2010 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Internet Exceptionalism * Stern v. Sony Corp., CV 09-7710 PA (C.D. Cal. Feb. 8 2010) “to the extent Plaintiff is suing Sony as a manufacturer of video games, and the provider of online services, Sony is not…
Craigslist Wins $1.3M Default Judgment Against Autoposting Facilitator — craigslist v. Naturemarket
[Post by Venkat] craigslist, Inc. v. Naturemarket, Inc., Case No. C 08-05065 PJH (MEJ) (N.D. Cal. March 5, 2010) [scribd] (report and recommendation adopted on February 5, 2010) Craigslist obtained a 1.3 million dollar default judgment against defendants Naturemarket, Inc….
Search Engine Legal Developments to Watch in 2010
By Eric Goldman I recently spoke on a panel about search engines and the law at SMX West. I previewed four major trends in search engine law to watch in 2010: 1) Competition issues. Antitrust/competition law has become a big…
Why I Support HR 4364, the Proposed Federal Anti-SLAPP Bill
By Eric Goldman In mid-December, in a move that got a little lost in the holiday shuffle, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) introduced HR 4364, the “Citizen Participation Act of 2009,” proposing a federal anti-SLAPP law. This blog post explains why…
February 2010 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Copyright * Mavericks Recording Co. v. Harper (5th Cir. Feb. 25, 2010). 17 USC 402(d) precludes an innocent infringement defense in P2P downloading case when the record companies place proper copyright notices on their works. This is…
Forwarding Defamatory Email with Introductory Comments Protected by 47 USC 230–Phan v. Pham
By Eric Goldman Phan v. Pham, 2010 WL 658244 (Cal. App. Ct. Feb. 25, 2010) This is the first 230 case I’m blogging about in 2010 (see my 2009 recap), and what a nice ruling to start the year. The…
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…