It’s Meshugenah to Operate a Streaming Mixtape Site–Atlantic v. Spinrilla
[Note: Meshugenah is Yiddish for “crazy.”] This is a brutal opinion. No matter how successful this defendant has been in the marketplace, copyright owner lawfare will almost certainly take it down. R.I.P. Spinrilla. Spinrilla is “a streaming and downloading service…
Who Owns Vacation Photos of You? Probably Not You–Hubay v. Mendez
A perennial copyright law professor hypothetical: who own the copyright to a person’s vacation photos? Obviously the vacationer owns the photos they take, including any selfies. But if you hand over the camera to a stranger/passerby, who owns that photo?…
Court Sends Wyze Labs Privacy Suit to Arbitration
Wyze provides home security monitoring and cameras. (They have a range of “smart home” products.) Plaintiffs sued Wyze on behalf of a putative class alleging that Wyze failed to safeguard their personal information. Wyze moved to compel arbitration. The court…
Facebook Can Block Scraper (For Now)–Facebook v. BrandTotal
BrandTotal offered a Chrome extension called “UpVoice.” Once installed, the extension allegedly scraped public and non-public information from the users’ Facebook and Instagram accounts. Facebook attempted to crack down on the extension. It terminated BrandTotal’s Facebook and Instagram pages and…
Court Upholds Gaming App’s Clickthrough TOS–Ball v. Skillz
Skillz’s app 21 Blitz allowed players to play blackjack against each other. To sign up for the app, players had to navigate the following screen: The linked TOS contained a prominent arbitration clause. Two plaintiffs sued Skillz for locking them…
If You Want an Enforceable Online Contract, You Better Keep a Good Chain of Evidence–Snow v. Eventbrite
Eventbrite wanted to send a lawsuit to arbitration, so it invoked the arbitration clause in its TOS. But did the plaintiffs assent to Eventbrite’s TOS? The court says no. What went wrong? Eventbrite has three online venues: its desktop website,…
QAnon Conspiracy Theorists Can’t Force YouTube to Carry Their Videos–Doe v. Google
This lawsuit is peak 2020. The plaintiffs dubiously characterized themselves as “‘extremely controversial’ ‘conservative news’ channels,” and they claim YouTube tossed them overboard due to its alleged anti-conservative bias. I don’t know the word “conservative” means in the Trump era,…
We’re Still Unsure If Instagram Grants Users a Sublicense to Embed Photos
I blogged earlier this summer about McGucken v. Newsweek, a case that involved a media defendant who was sued by a photographer because it embedded (and displayed) photos in an online article. Newsweek asked the court to reconsider its ruling…
LinkedIn Isn’t a State Actor–Perez v. LinkedIn
Perez had a LinkedIn account with over 7,000 connections (really?). LinkedIn removed some of his posts and restricted access to his profile due to alleged TOU violations. State Action. Perez, proceeding pro se, alleged that LinkedIn “is subject to the…
Twitter Wins Another Account Suspension Case–Wilson v. Twitter
I previously blogged the plaintiff’s virtually identical lawsuit in June. The plaintiff claimed Twitter suspended his account because he’s a heterosexual Christian. The court rejected all of his claims, including his allegations that Twitter was a state actor and Twitter…