1H 2021 Quick Links, Part 1 (IP)
Trademarks and Domain Names * Kid Car NY, LLC v. Kidmoto Techs. LLC, 2021 WL 466975 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 9, 2021): “At the motion to dismiss stage, Kidmoto has plausibly alleged more than just the purchase of a competitor’s mark as…
RedBubble Gets Another Favorable Ruling–YZ Productions v. RedBubble
Rebecca Zamolo appears to be a YouTuber/influencer who merchandises her brand in multiple ways. She claims that RedBubble users are infringing her IP and counterfeiting her offerings. The complaint includes many images showing the alleged infringements, such as: The court…
State Government’s Alleged Copyright Infringement Wasn’t a “Taking”–Jim Olive v. University of Houston (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Tyler Ochoa Last week, the Texas Supreme Court held that “the violation of a copyright, without more, is not a taking of the copyright,” and affirmed the dismissal of Olive’s inverse condemnation claim. UH allegedly downloaded Olive’s…
What Are ‘Red Flags of Infringement’? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ — Capitol v. Vimeo
Do you remember this case? It was filed in 2009, back when MySpace was still bigger than Facebook. The copyright owners never sent Vimeo any takedown notices over the videos in question, but they still sued Vimeo for hosting them….
Depiction of Michigan as Hands Doesn’t Preclude Similar Depictions–High Five v. MFB
High Five Threads sells t-shirts and tchotchkes. It claims copyright and trademark protection for a depiction of upper and lower Michigan as two hands (left-most image below). People routinely depict lower Michigan as a hand, and apparently others envision the…
Ninth Circuit Rejects Lawsuit Over Hijacked Facebook Account–Long v. Dorset
Long is a book author. He ran a Facebook business page to promote his work. An interloper, using the alias “Tammy Dorset,” gained administrator access to the Facebook page. Once in control of the page, Dorset allegedly posted items that…
Broadcaster Fails to Enjoin YouTube–Kifle v. YouTube
Kifle operates a broadcast channel called Mejera, which apparently caters to the Ethiopian community. He has a YouTube channel that simultaneously rebroadcasts the programs. The YouTube channel had 2,500 videos and 200k+ subscribers, but YouTube abruptly terminated it. It appears…
512(f) Preempts Tortious Interference Claim–Copy Me That v. This Old Gal
“Copy Me That” (I’m pretty sure no IP lawyer recommended that name–it’s like a confession for copyright defendants) makes an app to help users manage recipes. “This Old Gal” (again, who comes up with these names?) publishes recipes. This Old…
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Fair Use in Google-Oracle Software Battle (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa [BONUS: Prof. Ochoa will be speaking on this case April 13, 6pm Pacific. Free registration.] On April 5, the U.S. Supreme Court held 6-2 that Google’s copying of 11,500 lines of code from the Java…
Section 230 Preempts Contract Breach Claims–Morton v. Twitter
This case involves the model Genevieve Morton. She created nude images and sold them at her website. An interloper, SpyIRL, tweeted some of the images. Morton asked Twitter to remove the images and suspend the accounts. Twitter removed the images…