Blogger’s Photo Republication Isn’t Fair Use–Golden v. Grecco
This case involves a photo of Lucy Lawless as Xena. The TV studio hired Michael Grecco to take the photo and paid him $25k for his services. Grecco retained the photo’s copyright, and he made the photo available for licensing…
Pinterest Defeats Contributory Copyright Infringement Claim–Davis v. Pinterest
This is a copyright infringement case against Pinterest for allegedly infringing “pins” by users. The plaintiff alleged claims for direct and contributory copyright infringement. Pinterest moved to dismiss the claim for contributory infringement. The court grants the motion. In addition…
More Confirmation That RSS Feeds Aren’t Just “Really Simple Stealing”–MidlevelU v. Newstex
The plaintiff made the full text of its blog posts available via RSS. Newstex, an aggregator, subscribed to the RSS feed as part of its “Index” service (which it ultimately discontinued because it wasn’t profitable). The service automatically generated summaries…
IP Lawsuits Against Print-on-Demand Vendors Continue to Vex the Courts–OSU v. Redbubble & More
[This post covers three recent print-on-demand cases. After the Ohio State writeup, keep reading for more fun and confusion.] Redbubble operates in the print-on-demand industry, but it’s adopted a different organizational structure than some of its competitors. Redbubble outsources manufacturing…
Internet Law Year-in-Review for 2020
[I know 2020 feels like it was 100 years ago, but I’ve been busy in 2021 so far. I did year-end roundups of developments in Section 230 and emoji law.] My top Internet Law developments from 2020: 8. TSPA/TSF Launch….
Google and Twitter Defeat Lawsuit Over Account Suspensions/Terminations–DeLima v. Google
Natasha DeLima (a/k/a “Natasha Athens”) claims that Google and Twitter have imposed various sanctions on her accounts, including suspension and termination. She alleges that Google and Twitter took these actions due to political bias against her. (This article notes some…
CASE-ing the Joint: The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (Guest Blog Post)
By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa [Eric’s note: Prof. Ochoa previously posted a 900 word summary of the CASE Act. This post does a 5,500 word deep dive into the law for those who want the details.] On December 27, 2020,…
Mirroring Qualifies for Section 230–Monsarrat v. Newman
This case involves a LiveJournal community (the Davis Square community for Somerville, MA). In 2017, LiveJournal changed its policies. In response, Newman, the community moderator, copied all of the community’s posts and uploaded them to Dreamwidth–an action we used to…
A Short Summary of the CASE Act (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Tyler Ochoa [Eric’s intro: The following is an excerpt from Joyce, Ochoa and Carroll, Copyright Law (2021 Supplement). In a future post, Prof. Ochoa will do a deep dive on the CASE Act for the geeks.] [C]…
A New CJEU Judgment on Copyright-Related Geoblocking – One Step Forward or One Step Back in the EU Commission’s Fight Against Geoblocking? (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Marketa Trimble May a licensor limit a copyright license to a certain part of the European Union? The answer lies at the intersection of EU copyright law, EU anti-geoblocking law, and EU competition law. The three areas of…