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…
2H 2020 Quick Links, Part 1 (Copyright)
* UMG Recordings v. RCN Telecom Services, LLC, 3:19-cv-17272-MAS-ZNQ (D.N.J. Aug. 31, 2020): Plaintiffs have made allegations sufficient to satisfy the knowledge requirement at the pleading stage. As to actual knowledge, Plaintiffs aver that the five million notices sent to…
Jury Will Decide If Videogame Character Infringes a Wrestling Persona–GI Bro v. Call of Duty
The plaintiff is a wrestler, primarily known as Booker T. When he wrestles for WWE, he used the stage name G.I. Bro. There’s also a comic book line based on the G.I. Bro character. The defendant makes the Call of…
Fair Use Permits Newspaper to Republish Photo Taken By Drone–Castle v. Kingsport Publishing
Yes, this is another defense-favorable fair use ruling produced by a Richard Liebowitz lawsuit. 🙏🙏🙏 The case relates to a construction site for a proposed new school, which may have sinkholes. This concern sparked substantial community debate. The plaintiff flew…
Another Court Says Embedding Instagram Photos May Be Fair Use–Boesen v. United Sports
This is another Instagram embed case. For my most recent post on that topic, see this post. Plaintiff Boesen is a professional photographer. He captured an image of professional tennis player Caroline Wozniacki near the beginning of her career. Ms….
It’s Meshugenah to Operate a Streaming Mixtape Site–Atlantic v. Spinrilla
[Note: Meshugenah is Yiddish for “crazy.”] This is a brutal opinion. No matter how successful this defendant has been in the marketplace, copyright owner lawfare will almost certainly take it down. R.I.P. Spinrilla. Spinrilla is “a streaming and downloading service…