Print-on-Demand Vendor Doesn’t Qualify for DMCA Safe Harbor–Feingold v. RageOn
This case involves two copyright-protected photos that users submitted to the RageOn print-on-demand service. Among other defenses, RageOn invoked the DMCA safe harbor. The Greg Young v. Zazzle case held that Zazzle qualified for the 512(c) safe harbor for displaying…
Q2 2020 Quick Links (Everything)
Copyright * Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications, Inc., 2020 WL 3121306 (E.D. Va. June 2, 2020). Each downloaded song file generally can support its own statutory damage, but “compilations” only get one statutory damages award, and no double-counting of…
Court Can’t Compel Twitter to Shut Down Trump’s Account
This lawsuit involves the @realdonaldtrump Twitter account. Has any Twitter account ever generated more litigation? The plaintiffs allege that Twitter did not properly enforce its TOS against the account. The plaintiff sought two types of relief: (1) a declaration that…
“Shitty Media Men” List Operator Doesn’t Qualify for Section 230 (Yet)–Elliott v. Donegan
[Note: I will blog the Senate Judiciary Committee’s EARN IT bill in a blog post next week, after I stop crying.] This case involves a Google spreadsheet called “Shitty Media Men,” created by the defendant. The defendant’s goal was to…
Want to Learn More About Section 230? A Guide to My Work
I’ve written a lot on Section 230 over the years. I thought it might be helpful to provide a narrated and highly selective bibliography: The Basics An Overview of the United States’ Section 230 Internet Immunity. This is the one-stop…
My Interview With Mathew Ingram Regarding Section 230
[Note: I did this interview with Mathew Ingram in late February–before the recent flood of new anti-Section 230 activity in DC that I still need to blog. I had always planned to share it here, but the issue got backburnered…
Running Geotargeted Advertising Confers Personal Jurisdiction–UMG Recordings v. Kurbanov
The plaintiffs brought a copyright infringement lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia federal court. The defendants include FLVTO and 2conv, two Russian-based websites that enable users to engage in stream-ripping of YouTube videos and other sources (i.e., extracting the…
Section 230 Protects Twitter from the “Devin Nunes’ Cow” Lawsuit–Nunes v. Twitter
In this well-publicized case, Rep. Devin Nunes sued Liz Mair (@LizMair) and the accounts @devincow (“Devin Nunes’ Cow”), and @DevinNunesMom for various tweets. That lawsuit is dubious. Even less wisely, Nunes also sued Twitter for these third-party tweets. The judge…
Another Court Rejects Turo’s Eligibility for Section 230–Turo v. Los Angeles
As I previously blogged: Turo is a peer-to-peer marketplace for car rentals. “Colloquially put, Turo is the ‘Airbnb’ of private motor vehicles.” Though Turo doesn’t dictate where the buyer and seller exchange the car, Turo facilitates matches at airports, either…
President Trump Loves Section 230 for Himself, Just Not for Anyone Else (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Jess Miers [Eric’s introduction: this is the second of a two-part series from Jess Miers, a 3L at SCU and my RA, providing historical context on Trump’s anti-social media statements, including the anti-Section 230 Executive Order from last…