Section 230 Ruling Against Airbnb Puts All Online Marketplaces At Risk–Airbnb v. San Francisco
San Francisco wants to curb Airbnb listings. It adopted a license-and-tax requirement for Airbnb vendors (who Airbnb confusingly calls “hosts”). Vendors widely ignored SF’s rules. To minimize its enforcement obligations, SF sought to deputize Airbnb as its enforcement agency. Thus,…
Section 230 Doesn’t Protect Amazon From Products Liability Claims–McDonald v. LG
This case involves an exploding cellphone battery. LG manufactured the battery and an Amazon marketplace vendor Safetymind sold it to the buyer. In addition to suing LG, the injured buyer sued Amazon for negligent failure to warn, negligence, and breach…
Constitutional Challenge to Section 230 Fails On Standing Grounds–AFDI v. Lynch
This lawsuit involves a facial attack on Section 230 on First Amendment grounds. The plaintiffs are unhappy that, protected by Section 230, social media companies have squelched some of their speech while allowing other speakers to promulgate content they don’t…
Backpage Can’t Challenge the SAVE Act–Backpage v. Lynch
I never had a chance to blog the 2015 SAVE Act, but I always meant to. It’s one of the rare times that Congress intentionally circumscribed Section 230. However, instead of amending Section 230 directly, Congress added a federal criminal…
Google Loses Two Section 230(c)(2) Rulings–Spy Phone v. Google and Darnaa v. Google
Section 230(c)(2) doesn’t get a lot of love from practitioners or academics because it doesn’t get a lot of love in court. At the motion to dismiss stage, plaintiffs often can get past a Section 230(c)(2) defense by alleging the…
Stock Music Library Wins DMCA Safe Harbor Defense–Hempton v. Pond5
Gordon Hempton, an “acoustic ecologist,” creates sound clips of nature. Pond5 runs a stock library–similar to an online marketplace–consisting of 20M content items, including music clips, uploaded by 58,000 registered users. “ckennedy342” is a Pond5 uploader who, it turns out,…
Another Tortured DMCA Online Safe Harbor Ruling–EMI v. MP3Tunes
We’re inadvertently “celebrating” Section 512 week at the Technology and Marketing Law Blog, with Monday’s post on the Copyright Office’s kneecapping of designated agents, today’s post on the MP3Tunes ruling, and a forthcoming post on Pond5. In the past, blogging…
Copyright Office Gratuitously Kills the DMCA Safe Harbor For Thousands of Websites
This story has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion. In 2011 (yes, over 5 years ago), the Copyright Office announced that it was going to transition the designation of DMCA safe harbor agents from paper to electronic….
Celebrating Judge Ronald Whyte’s Contributions to Internet Law
As you may know, Judge Ronald Whyte is retiring from the Northern District of California. Last week, a symposium at Stanford celebrated his contributions to IP law, especially patent law. The Recorder’s writeup. My photo album. Judge Whyte’s Contributions to…
Some Comments on the CA/TX Attorneys’ General Prosecution of Backpage’s Executives
By now I’m sure you’ve heard that California Attorney General Kamala Harris is prosecuting three Backpage executives for pimping/conspiracy to pimp. This is the latest–and perhaps last–development in a decade-long effort by legislators, state AGs and local prosecutors to shut…