Twitter Narrows, But Doesn’t Completely Avoid, a Dangerous Copyright Lawsuit–Concord Music v. X

Music publishers sued Twitter for users’ alleged copyright infringement. The court says that three aspects of the contributory copyright infringement claim survive Twitter’s motion to dismiss. Direct Copyright Infringement. The publishers argued that Twitter “transmitted” their works. The court says…

Print-on-Demand Service Defeats Fish Illustrator's Copyright Claim--Tomelleri v. Sunfrog

Print-on-Demand Service Defeats Fish Illustrator’s Copyright Claim–Tomelleri v. Sunfrog

Tomelleri (who has appeared on this blog before) illustrates fishes (see court exhibit on the right). He sued a print-on-demand service (Sunfrog) over alleged IP violations of his illustrations. If that rings a bell, it’s because just yesterday I blogged…

Print-on-Demand Services Face More Legal Woes–Canvasfish v. Pixels

In the ongoing legal battles over print-on-demand services, RedBubble and (more recently) Printify have sometimes achieved favorable results by disaggregating all of the functions and acting solely as a marketing agent for the disaggregated vendors. These defense-favorable outcomes may work…

Reaction Videos Are Fair Use–Thiccc Boy v. Swindelles

Thiccc Boy produces The Fighter & the Kid podcast, led by Brendan Schaub (the titular “fighter”). Swindelles (a/k/a Yew Neek Ness…uniqueness, get it?) broadcast at SaiyanZStream on YouTube (the stream appears to be gone). Swindelle made and posted reaction videos…

Internet Access Providers Can Be Contributorily Liable for Subscribers' Infringements--Sony Music v. Cox

Internet Access Providers Can Be Contributorily Liable for Subscribers’ Infringements–Sony Music v. Cox

As I’ve previously written, for many years after the DMCA passed, everyone assumed that 17 USC 512(a) completely shielded Internet access providers from liability for subscribers’ copyright infringements. Then, about a dozen years ago, the rightsowners coerced Internet access providers…

Fourth Circuit Issues a Bummer Fair Use Ruling--Philpot v. IJR

Fourth Circuit Issues a Bummer Fair Use Ruling–Philpot v. IJR

Larry Philpot is a repeat copyright plaintiff. We’ve blogged some of his cases before (1, 2), including the lower court ruling in this case. In 2016, the defendant IJR published an article/listicle titled “15 Signs Your Daddy Was a Conservative.”…

Retweeting as Copyright Infringement--Prepared Food Photos v. Chicken Joe's

Retweeting as Copyright Infringement–Prepared Food Photos v. Chicken Joe’s

The issue is, what is (the copyright implication of retweeting a photo of) chicken? (head nod to Judge Friendly). * * * The plaintiff allegedly licenses a photo database to grocery stores for $12k/yr. The case involves one of those…

Courts Still Have No Clue How to Determine Who Owns Social Media Accounts--JLM v. Gutman

Courts Still Have No Clue How to Determine Who Owns Social Media Accounts–JLM v. Gutman

This is the latest entry in a long-running legal battle between Hayley Paige Gutman, a bridalwear designer, and JLM Couture, her one-time employer. Gutman created a Pinterest account in 2011 and an Instagram account in 2012, shortly after she began…

N.D. Cal. Judge Pushes Back on Copyright SAD Scheme Cases--Viral DRM v. YouTube Schedule A Defendants

N.D. Cal. Judge Pushes Back on Copyright SAD Scheme Cases–Viral DRM v. YouTube Schedule A Defendants

My SAD Scheme paper provided some data indicating that 88% of SAD Scheme cases involved trademarks, with only 6% each in copyright and patents. So SAD Scheme copyright cases aren’t unheard of, but they are rare. * * * A…

2023 Internet Law Year-in-Review

2023 Internet Law Year-in-Review

My roundup of the top Internet Law developments of 2023: 10) California court bans targeted advertising (?). Regulators have sought to suppress online targeted advertising for years, with only minimal success. Then, in Liapes v. Facebook, a California appeals court…