By Eric Goldman I am nearing the end of my last major research project (the Brand Spillovers project–see [1] and [2]). I hope to post a near-final draft to SSRN in the next couple of months. Meanwhile, I’m now moving…
By Eric Goldman Steele v. Mengelkoch, 2008 WL 2966529 (Minn..App. Ct. Aug. 5, 2008) A professor at Bemidji State University wrote a story saying some putatively unflattering things about a local journalist, who didn’t take kindly to the allegations and…
By Eric Goldman Hysitron Inc. v. MTS Systems Corp., 2008 WL 3161969 (D. Minn. Aug. 1, 2008) In a brief and pedestrian opinion, another court outside the Second Circuit said that buying a trademarked keyword is “use in commerce” under…
By Eric Goldman [Note: I recently published a version of this article at InformIT. Here’s the pre-edited version I sent them.] Introduction This article discusses marketers’ liability for the actions of their marketing affiliates (what I refer to as “affiliate…
By Eric Goldman Search Engines * Google explains all of the ways that it reinterprets the actual search query provided by a consumer to deliver results for words the searcher didn’t use. As I’ve said before, Google’s intermediation makes it…
By Eric Goldman Copyright * Granger v. Gill Abstract Corp., 2008 WL 2791264 (S.D.N.Y. July 18, 2008). A title company admitted infringing the defendant’s copyrighted “rate calculator” by posting it to the title company’s website. The plaintiff demanded actual damages…
By Eric Goldman The Cartoon Network LP v. CSC Holdings, Inc., No. 07-1480-cv(L) & 07-1511-cv(CON) (2d Cir. Aug. 4, 2008) The Second Circuit has issued an interesting and potentially important ruling that Cablevision’s DVR as a service does not infringe…
By Eric Goldman Verizon California, Inc. v. Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc., 2008 WL 2651163 (C.D. Cal. June 30, 2008). The Justia page. A page with some of the early filings. [Sorry for the delay blogging this–it just showed up on…
Another friendly reminder that not everything related to copyright is copyright. By Ethan Ackerman The Copyright Act is a curious critter. Litigants seem to keep finding ways to get unexpectedly drawn into it when they don’t want to and ways…
By Eric Goldman I got the following postcard solicitation in the mail yesterday: (Click on it to see a larger size). There are a number of goofy things about this postcard, including the language that I am “now ON RECORD”…