Why I Oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)/E-PARASITES Act
By Eric Goldman [Note: I’ve been working on this post for about 2 weeks, so my apologies if my comments are duplicative of the intervening discussion about the bill] The DMCA online safe harbors have worked pretty well over the…
Good News/Bad News About the Number of Blogs Eligible for the 17 USC 512 Safe Harbor
By Eric Goldman My 2006 article about blog law included the following passage (footnotes omitted): few blogs satisfy the numerous technical prerequisites for § 512 eligibility, such as registering their websites with the U.S. Copyright Office. To assess this, on…
October 2011 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Copyright * MUST READ from Techdirt: MPAA Helped Police Seize ‘Pirated’ DVDs That Were Actually Fully Authorized. On the topic of errors in determining copyright infringement, the incident a powerful reminder both that even those “in the…
Ninth Circuit Affirms Google’s Section 230 Win Over a Negative Business Review–Black v. Google
By Eric Goldman Black v. Google, Inc., 2011 WL 5188426 (9th Cir. Nov. 1, 2011). The complaint. The district court ruling. The Blacks sued Google over a negative third party review of their business published in an unspecified Google property….
Yahoo Partially Defeats Lawsuit Over Wrongful Account Termination–Buza v. Yahoo
By Eric Goldman Buza v. Yahoo, Inc., 2011 WL 5041174 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2011). The complaint. Buza claims Yahoo terminated two GeoCities accounts related to his advocacy efforts. Buza is proceeding pro se, which is typical for user lawsuits…
Yelp Gets Complete Win in Advertiser “Extortion” Case–Levitt v. Yelp
By Eric Goldman Levitt v. Yelp Inc., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124082 (N.D Cal. Oct. 26, 2011) A group of advertisers sued Yelp for allegedly extorting them to buy ads from Yelp with the implied/express threat that Yelp would degrade…
Google Defeats Class Certification in Keyword Ad Lawsuit–FPX v. Google
By Eric Goldman FPX, LLC v. Google, Inc., 2011 WL 4783376 (E.D. Tex. Sept. 29, 2011) Google obtained a major victory in one of the most serious pending lawsuits against it challenging its AdWords keyword advertising program. Putative class action…
New Essay on 47 USC 230(c)(2)
By Eric Goldman I have posted a new essay, Online User Account Termination and 47 U.S.C. §230(c)(2), to SSRN. I wrote this essay as a contribution to a virtual world symposium at UC Irvine, and it will be published in…
Stock Trading Message Board Protected by 47 USC 230–Deer Consumer Products v. Little
By Eric Goldman Deer Consumer Products v. Little, Index No. 650823/11 (NY Sup. Ct. Aug. 31, 2011) SeekingAlpha is a message board for stock traders. This is their second appearance on the blog. In Desai v. Clark, a SeekingAlpha author…
Failure to Delete Third Party Comments Supports a Malice Finding in Defamation Case–Tanner v. Ebbole
By Eric Goldman Tanner v. Ebbole, 2011 WL 4425540 (Ala. Civ. App. Ct. Sept. 23, 2011) Competitive animosity can be found in every industry, but it sometimes amazes me just how sharp it can. Today’s case involves competing tattoo shops…