Website Isn’t Liable When Users Lie About Their Ages–Doe v. SexSearch
By Eric Goldman Doe v. SexSearch.com, 2007 WL 2388913 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 22, 2007) Introduction This case adds to the burgeoning 230 jurisprudence involving people looking online for love or sex. (Others that come to mind include Carafano, Anthony, Landry-Bell,…
Online Reputation and its Implications for Online User Agreements
By Eric Goldman Shmuel Becher and Tal Zarsky, E-Contract Doctrine 2.0: Standard Form Contracting in the Age of Online User Participation Right now, the rules applicable to online user agreements are a doctrinal mess. We want to encourage businesses and…
Taking Intangible Electronic Files is Criminal Fraud–NM v. Kirby
By Eric Goldman New Mexico v. Kirby, 2007-NMSC-034 (N.M. June 13, 2007) This is a very confusing case, so maybe you can help me figure out what it means. At minimum, this case highlights the problems that can be arise…
Ninth Circuit Strikes Down Contract Amendment Without Notice–Douglas v. Talk America
By Eric Goldman Douglas v. US District Court ex rel Talk America, No. 06-75424 (9th Cir. July 18, 2007) In this case, the plaintiff initially procured telephony services from AOL, which subsequently sold its telephony business to Talk America. Talk…
Patent Contingency Fee Agreements
By Eric Goldman Patent litigation is hot, but I rarely see much discussion about the fee agreements used by patent litigants. So I was very interested to hear Stephen Susman (from the well-known Susman Godfrey firm) speak at the May…
SAP Has Bad News in Oracle Lawsuit, But Tries to Bury It
By Eric Goldman Oracle Corp. v. SAP AG, Case No. 07-CV-1658 MJJ (N.D. Cal. answer filed July 2, 2007) You’re an international corporate giant with some bad news in a high-profile case that you want to bury. What do you…
June 2007 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Email * Spam cases are coming at a regular clip, and it’s tricky divining the latest state of the law. Two recent cases that caught my attention: – US v. Impulse Media Group, 2007 WL 1725560 (W.D….
Cavazos Presentation on Open Source
By Eric Goldman At the UT Austin Technology Law Conference in May, Ed Cavazos spoke about open source issues. He proffered seven common myths about open source: #1: the phrase “open source” is meaningful, or developers understand all this so…
May 2007 Quick Links
By Eric Goldman Spam * MySpace Inc. v. The Globe.com Inc., No. CV 06-3391 RGK (C.D. Cal. Feb. 27, 2007). This case has some personal interest because theglobe.com was one of my flagship clients before I left the law firm…
“Last Call” Draft of GPL3 is Posted
By John Ottaviani The Free Software Foundation posted the “last call” draft of version 3 of the GPL on its website yesterday for comment. The General Public License (GPL) is one of the most widely used open source licenses. Version…