This case is a throwback in every way. We rarely see lengthy (this one clocks in at 46 pages), detailed, and philosophical Section 512(c) opinions any more, and we only get this one because of the case’s extreme age. Capitol…
by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Last year, I wrote about how Elon Musk had inadvertently become web scrapers’ most powerful legal advocate. Not because he wanted to advocate for them. But rather, in seeking to enforce a no-scraping ban in…
“Minnesota Statutes section 609.771 prohibits, under certain circumstances, the dissemination of ‘deepfakes’ with the intent to injure a political candidate or influence the result of an election.” The plaintiffs brought a pre-enforcement challenge to the law, but the court denies…
As the maxim goes, all politics are local. A corollary is that few political disputes are as nasty or vitrolic as local politics. When local disputes devolve into total warfare, the parties grasp for any legal leverage against their sworn…
My ranking of the top 10 Internet Law developments of 2024. 10) X/Twitter Embraces Partisan Bias. For years, MAGA has claimed that Internet company employees are liberals and therefore surely moderate content to favor their preferred team (the Democrats) and…
California SB 976, “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act,” is one of the multitudinous laws that pretextually claim to protect kids online. Like many such laws nowadays, it’s a gish-gallop compendium of online censorship ideas: Age authentication! Parental…
A few years ago, I summarized Keith Bell’s copyright enforcement efforts: Bell published a short book in 1982. It contained a passage that has become a meme in the sports community. Bell has separately registered a copyright in the passage….
This is a FOSTA case involving Backpage, but it’s against Backpage’s vendor Salesforce. That makes this a tertiary liability claim. Here are the steps in the plaintiffs’ alleged chain of liability: V) victims promoted in Backpage advertisements (plaintiffs) –> D1)…
This is a data breach case involving a flaw in Twitter’s API that allowed malefactors to steal information about 200M Twitter users. Twitter invokes its TOS, including its warranty disclaimer and limitation of liability, against the plaintiffs’ claims for breach…
This is the instant-classic lawsuit involving a Saskatchewan farmer who text-messaged a “thumbs-up” emoji in response to an offer to buy his flax. The lower court found that the seller’s thumbs-up emoji constituted assent to the buyer’s offer and awarded…