New Essay: Understanding the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016
I’ve posted a new essay, Understanding the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016, to SSRN. It will be published later this year in the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review (MTTLR). I trust most of you already know about the…
Copyshop Covered By “Non-Commercial” Creative Commons License–Great Minds v. FedEx
Great Minds developed a math curriculum called Eureka Math. It commercializes the Eureka Math materials itself but also released the materials pursuant to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike (CC BY-NC-SA) 4.0 license. Great Minds discovered at least two circumstances where school…
YouTube Defeats Another Remove-and-Relocate Case–Darnaa v. Google
YouTube has been sued a few times for removing a video based on its spam policies and then relocating it to a new URL because remove-and-relocate breaks in-bound links (and any associated marketing investments) and resets the view counter. This…
University Rejection of Students’ Marijuana-Themed T-Shirt Violates First Amendment–Gerlich v. Leath
Iowa State (ISU) officially recognizes a student chapter for NORML, a marijuana advocacy group. All ISU student groups can use ISU trademarks on merchandise if they comply with the “Guidelines for University Trademark Use by Student and Campus Organizations,” as…
Actress in Viral Video Can’t Prevent Video From Being Made Into an Advertisement–Roberts v. Bliss
Bliss produced a viral video called “10 Hours Walking in NYC as a Woman” featuring actress Shoshana Roberts. You probably saw this video when it came out; it has been viewed over 40M times. The video shows how random strangers…
2H 2016 Quick Links, Part 10 (Marketing, Uber, Airbnb, Taxes & More)
Marketing/Advertising * Danny Sullivan: Facebook’s racial targeting isn’t new, bad or always illegal despite renewed attention * In re Sling Media Slingbox Advertising Litigation (SDNY Aug. 12, 2016). Sling isn’t liable to consumers for adding its own ads to recorded…
Top 10 Internet Law Developments of 2016
Donald Trump’s election as president pretty much dominated our thoughts about 2016 (though Brexit was pretty significant too). So I decided to break up my annual top 10 list into two separate top 5 lists, one election-related, one not. Top…
2H 2016 Quick Links, Part 9 (Privacy/Security)
* California AB 691: “Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act.” The key part is the new Probate Code Sec. 873(a): A user may use an online tool to direct the custodian to disclose to a designated recipient or…
Does Google’s Non-Disclosure Agreement With Employees Overreach? (Guest Blog Post)
Guest Post by Sharon K. Sandeen In the lead-up to this year’s Presidential election, there was a lot of chatter about the next “bomb-shell” bit of information that might be revealed about Donald Trump, particularly after his now-infamous pussy-grabbing comments….
Freelance Blogger Denied Unemployment Insurance–In re Mitchell
This case involves author Greg Mitchell. The Nation retained Mitchell as a freelance blogger in 2010. He was expected to blog on a daily/near-daily basis in exchange for $46,800/year paid monthly. He would be separately compensated for any pieces the…