Ninth Circuit Mucks Up 47 USC 230 Jurisprudence….AGAIN!?–Barnes v. Yahoo

By Eric Goldman Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc., 2009 WL 1232367 (9th Cir. May 7, 2009). My 2005 blog post on the lower court ruling. Reading Barnes v. Yahoo, I had an overpowering sense of deja vu. Almost precisely 2 years…

George Mason Talk and Paper on Economics of Reputational Information

By Eric Goldman Last week I presented a version of my Economics of Reputational Information talk at the Third Annual Conference in the Law and Economics of Innovation series, an event co-sponsored by George Mason Law School and Microsoft. My…

April 2009 Quick Links

By Eric Goldman [Just a reminder that I am posting some “quick links” exclusively to my Twitter account, so if you want to keep up with everything, follow me at Twitter or subscribe to the RSS feed.] Marketing/Spam * Zango…

Two 47 USC 230 Defense Losses–StubHub and Alvi Armani Medical

By Eric Goldman Even though both of these cases are a little dated, they both just showed up in Westlaw in the past couple weeks. Their juxtaposition, plus the recent Woodhull case, suggests a mini-trend against 230. NPS LLC v….

Certain Approval Program v. Rip-off Report Update: Misappropriation Claim Dismissed

By Eric Goldman Certain Approval Programs, L.L.C. v. XCentric Ventures L.L.C., CV08-1608-PHX-NVW (D. Ariz. April 13, 2009). Yet another update on Rip-off Report litigation. In March, a ruling in Certain Approval Program v. Xcentric caused a minor stir. The plaintiff…

230 Doesn’t Preempt State IP Claims–Atlantic Records v. Project Playlist

By Eric Goldman Atlantic Recording Corp. v. Project Playlist, Inc., 2009 WL 766224 (S.D.N.Y. March 25, 2009). The Justia page. This ruling addresses one of the known “circuit splits” in 47 USC 230 jurisprudence: does 230 preempt state IP claims…

Graeme Dinwoodie on Rescuecom v. Google

By Eric Goldman [Eric’s note: As I mentioned, I’m getting a lot of private emails about Rescuecom v. Google, including the email from Margreth Barrett that I blogged last week. Today, I got the following email from Graeme Dinwoodie, a…

Blogspot Sued for Dead Blogger’s Content–Davis v. Google

By Eric Goldman Davis v. Google, 09 CH 15753 (Cook County Ct. complaint filed April 9, 2009) Venkat sent a very interesting lawsuit this morning that raises some complex policy issues. The complaint alleges that Sean Healy created a blog…

Q1 2009 Quick Links, Part 3

By Eric Goldman Blogging and Social Networking Sites * A new version of the EFF Legal Guide to Blogging. While you’re there, consider joining EFF as a member. The EFF does first-rate work, and they can use all the support…

47 USC 230 Talk at Fordham

By Eric Goldman A couple weeks ago, I gave a 12 minute talk at Fordham Law School as part of a day-long conference on intermediaries. My talk notes: ___ 230(c)(1) means websites and other actors aren’t liable for third party…