2H 2017 & Q1 2018 Quick Links, Part 5: Marketing, Advertising, Retailing
Marketing/Advertising * Washington Post: See the cool kids lined up outside that new restaurant? This app pays them to stand there. * AdWeek: Burger King Dug Up a Bunch of Tweets From People Complaining About Wendy’s and Turned Them Into…
VRBO’s Anti-Fraud Guarantee Doesn’t Support Claim Over Fraudulent Listing–Hiam v. HomeAway
A vacationer found a listing of interest on VRBO (owned by HomeAway). After back-and-forth negotiations with the lister, he sent $46k for a week’s rental. The property proved to be fictional, so the vacationer got fleeced. VRBO investigated and, oddly,…
‘Worst of Both Worlds’ FOSTA Signed Into Law, Completing Section 230’s Evisceration
This morning, President Trump signed H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (FOSTA), into law. The bill signing was anticipated, but that doesn’t make the outcome any less terrible. Today, Washington DC regulators…
2H 2017 & Q1 2018 Quick Links, Part 1: Copyright, Trademarks, Keyword Ads
[As you can tell, my ability to prepare these Quick Links posts has degraded substantially…better late than never?] Copyright * The Executive Corp. v. Oisoon, LLC, 2017 WL 4310113 (M.D. Tenn. Sept. 28, 2017). A default judgment: “A section 1202(b)(1)…
Lindsay Lohan Loses Publicity Rights Case Over Grand Theft Auto–Lohan v. Take-Two
Lindsay Lohan is the new spokesperson for Lawyer.com, and boy is she qualified to talk about that subject! Her litigiousness should have earned her a street JD. Sadly, though, her voluminous experience with the law hasn’t adequately sharpened her legal acumen, and…
District Court Ruling Highlights Congress’ Hastiness To Pass ‘Worst of Both Worlds FOSTA’– Doe 1 v. Backpage
Backpage has been the poster child for Section 230’s purported failings. The argument goes (1) Backpage facilitates sex trafficking, (2) Section 230 protects Backpage, so (3) Section 230 is evil. That was the core message of the so-called “documentary” I Am Jane…
More on the Unconstitutional Retroactivity of ‘Worst of Both Worlds FOSTA’ (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alex F. Levy [For a discussion of retroactivity concerns under 47 U.S.C. §230(e)(5)(A), see my earlier post.] A law violates the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto clause if it “makes more burdensome the punishment for a crime, after its commission, or…deprives one charged with…
YouTube Isn’t a Company Town (Duh)–Prager University v. Google
Prager University produces videos designed to convert teenagers into conservatives. It has posted over 250 videos to YouTube. YouTube has placed some of those videos into “restricted mode,” which blocks the videos’ availability to YouTube users who voluntarily operate in…
Senate Passes ‘Worst of Both Worlds FOSTA’ (Linkwrap)
Guest-bloggers and I have already blogged SESTA and FOSTA about 2 dozen times (see below), so there’s not much to say specifically about the Senate’s approval of the Worst of Both Worlds FOSTA (without further amendment). I already explained most of the problems…
Why FOSTA’s Restriction on Prostitution Promotion Violates the First Amendment (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alex F. Levy 18 U.S.C. §2421A(a) violates the First Amendment. While “[o]ffers to engage in illegal transactions are categorically excluded from First Amendment protection,” this provision prohibits far more than that. U.S. v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285,…