U.S. Supreme Court Vindicates Photographer But Destabilizes Fair Use — Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (Guest Blog Post)

[Eric’s note: this is the post you’ve been waiting for: Prof. Ochoa’s definitive analysis of the Supreme Court’s Warhol opinion. This post is 11,000+ words long, so you may want to block out some time to enjoy this properly.] By…

Politician-Operated Social Media Accounts Raise Many Thorny Legal Issues

In February, Justice Kagan joked that the Supreme Court justices “are not the nine greatest experts on the Internet.” That is certainly true–for example, the justices cannot publicly engage in ordinary social media interactions–yet the justices are getting a crash…

The 9th Circuit Keeps Trying to Ruin Cybersecurity--Enigma v. Malwarebytes

This case involves two anti-threat software vendors, Enigma and Malwarebytes. In 2016, Malwarebytes classified Enigma’s software as “malicious,” a “threat,” and a “potentially unwanted program” (or PUP), because the programs allegedly were “scareware.” Enigma challenged Malwarebytes’ classifications in court. Initially,…

by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Doe 1 v. GitHub, Inc. is one of the first major class-action lawsuits to dive into questions of online collection of “public data” and generative AI training data sets. Given the importance of generative AI…

Of Course Section 230 Applies to Amazon Reviews--McCall v. Zotos

This case involves a customer’s Amazon review asserting that a merchant sold fake goods. The merchant sued Amazon (pro se) for defamation based on the review. The 11th Circuit easily dismisses the claim per Section 230. ICS Provider. “Amazon’s website…

Blogging personal jurisdiction cases isn’t that much fun for me. Nevertheless, this ruling caught my eye. This is an enforcement action over the trademark “Detoxify.” (I’m skipping the obvious trademarkability problems with a descriptive word like this). The defendant is…

Section 230 Ends Another Suspended Twitter User's Lawsuit--Zhang v. Twitter

I’m blogging this ruling mostly for completeness. I’ve blogged so many pro se lawsuits by suspended Twitter users and they all end the same. This one doesn’t break any new ground. Apparently, the plaintiff Taiming Zhang used his Twitter account…

Section 230 Doesn't Apply to High Schoolers' Online Bullying--Kutchinski v. Freeland Community School District

HK built an Instagram account impersonating a teacher. He “made one innocuous post on the account.” He unwisely shared the login credentials with two classmates, KL and LF. Those classmates made “incendiary posts” about other teachers (and tagged those teachers)…

Section 230 Immunizes Snap, Even if It's "Inherently Dangerous"--L.W. v. Snap

Predators allegedly used Snap to groom minors for sex and to obtain CSAM from them. The plaintiffs asserted products liability and related claims against Snap, on the premise that Snap “is an inherently dangerous software product that Defendants deceptively advertise…

Google Isn't Liable for Scam Ads--Ynfante v. Google

Ynfante responded to a scam ad shown when he Google-searched for “ebay customer service number,” and he called a phishing farm instead of eBay. “After Mr. Ynfante divulged his account information to the scam helpline, the scammers made purchases on…