March 2011 Quick Links, Part 1 (Special Copyright Edition)

By Eric Goldman * Big news #1: Judge Chin rejected the Google Book Search settlement. The opinion. If you read only one commentary about the rejection, it should be James Grimmelmann’s recap. My 2008 comments on the settlement. * Big…

Photo Hosting Site Gets DMCA 512 Safe Harbor–Wolk v. Photobucket

By Eric Goldman Wolk v. Kodak Imaging Network, Inc., 2011 WL 940056 (S.D.N.Y. March 17, 2011) Wolk (is this her?) is a visual artist whose work was allegedly infringed on Photobucket. She sent some 512(c)(3) takedown notices to Photobucket, which…

Copyright Take-Backs? Supreme Court Grants Cert in Golan v. Holder

by Ethan Ackerman The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a long-running copyright dispute over a 1994 law that retroactively restored copyright in some expired foreign works. In what ScotusBlog is calling “a major test of copyright power,” the Supreme…

Stanford Technology Law Review Symposium on Secondary IP Liability

By Eric Goldman Last week we had a cyberlaw-fiesta in the Silicon Valley, the likes of which have been rarely (if ever) seen before. The Stanford Technology Law Review hosted a symposium on Thursday on Internet intermediary liability, then we…

“Consumer Reviews of Doctors and Copyright Law” Talk Notes

By Eric Goldman You may recall that Medical Justice is a vendor trying to help doctors squelch online patient reviews–most recently by getting a prospective copyright assignment of the unwritten reviews and then sending 512(c)(3) takedown notices for any unwanted…

Jan.-Feb. 2011 Quick Links, Part 1 (Copyright Edition)

By Eric Goldman * I could do a whole separate category just for Righthaven: – Righthaven LLC v. South Coast Partners, Inc., 2011 WL 534046 (D. Nev. Feb. 8, 2011) held that another Righthaven defendant is subject to personal jurisdiction…

Web Host May Be Liable for Removing Only 1 of 3 Websites Operated by Its Customer–Hermeris v. Brandenburg

By Eric Goldman Hermeris v. Brandenburg, 2:10-cv-02531-JAR -KMH (D. Kan. Jan. 23, 2011) This is yet another web hosting copyright infringement case where the 17 USC 512 safe harbors aren’t discussed. (For other recent examples, see Rosen v. Hosting Services…

Free-to-Consumers Ad-Supported Website Isn’t Illegally Priced–Cammarata v. Bright Imperial

By Eric Goldman Cammarata v. Bright Imperial Ltd., 2011 WL 227943 (Cal. App. Ct. Jan. 26, 2011). The complaint. The trial court ruling. If you can’t compete with free, can you litigate it away? Kevin Cammarata ran subscription-based porn sites…

Another Copyright Owner Sent a Defective Takedown Notice and Faced 512(f) Liability–Rosen v. HSI

By Eric Goldman Rosen v. Hosting Services, Inc., 2010 WL 5630637 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 16, 2010). [This case just showed up for me in Westlaw. It’s not a major case but it’s worth a brief note even 5 months later]…

Top 5 Cyberlaw Developments of 2010, Plus a 2010 Year-in-Review

By Eric Goldman Earlier this Fall, I posted my top 8 trends in Internet law, and that’s a good place to start if you want to see how I think things are developing. Because of that post, this year I’m…