Steinbuch v. Cutler Update
By Eric Goldman Steinbuch v. Cutler, 2006 WL 3060084 (D.D.C. Oct 30, 2006) Steinbuch v. Cutler has the attributes of a modern cyberlaw classic–it’s got sex, power, politics, blogs, and sex. You may recall the story. Jessica Cutler was an…
Google Wins Keyword Lawsuit–Rescuecom v. Google
By Eric Goldman Rescuecom Corp. v. Google, Inc., No. 5:04-CV-1055 (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 28, 2006). You can find the ruling here (WARNING: 1.7MB file) Introduction and the 1-800 Contacts Precedent Last year, the Second Circuit issued a major ruling in the…
Texas Assistant Principal Sues Students and Parents Over Defamatory Profile on MySpace.com
By John Ottaviani High school students have been battling with and lampooning their assistant principals for generations. Last Spring, students in San Antonio, Texas, applied 21st century technology to the practice, when they allegedly set up a profile for their…
eBay User Agreement Upheld–Nazaruk v. eBay
By Eric Goldman Nazaruk v. eBay, 2006 WL 2666429 (D. Utah Sept. 14, 2006) Another lawsuit involving the eBay feedback forum. In this case, the pro se plaintiff alleges that eBay and the feedback submitter deprived her of her civil…
Adware, Spam and Some of My Other Favorite Topics
By Eric Goldman There has been a flurry of interesting legal developments in the last few days: * The plaintiffs voluntarily and unilaterally dismissed (with prejudice) Simios v. 180solutions, one of several putative class actions against adware vendors. See the…
Barrett v. Rosenthal Oral Argument Recap
By Eric Goldman Today I attended the California Supreme Court’s oral argument in the Barrett v. Rosenthal case. A short recap of the case: Bolen sent an email to Rosenthal that is allegedly defamatory of the plaintiff. Rosenthal then forwarded…
47 USC 230 Preempts State Criminal Law–Voicenet Communications v. Corbett
By Eric Goldman Voicenet Communications, Inc. v. Corbett, 2006 WL 2506318 (E.D. Pa. Aug 30, 2006) Does 47 USC 230 preempt state criminal laws that otherwise meet its statutory requirements? For a decade, we’ve thought the answer was yes, but…
Barrett v. Rosenthal Oral Arguments Scheduled for September 5
By Eric Goldman The California Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments in Barrett v. Rosenthal for September 5 at 2 pm in San Francisco. See the case record here. This case has the potential to define, as binding California precedent…
Can 512(f) Support an Injunction? Novotny v. Chapman
By Eric Goldman Novotny v. Chapman, 2006 WL 2335598 (W.D. N.C. Aug. 9, 2006) Chapman prepares a video showing how to cut women’s hair. Novotny obtains a license to stream the video via the web. Later, Chapman has a change…
Brand Spillovers Talk
By Eric Goldman Yesterday, at the IP Scholars Conference at Boalt, I presented my paper currently titled “Brand Spillovers.” This is the evolution of my project from last year I was calling Trademark Adjacency. I’m still trying to think through…