By Eric Goldman Two updates in the always-interesting Steinbuch v. Cutler case. 1) Steinbuch v. Cutler, No. 05-970 (D.D.C. May 16, 2007). Ana Marie Cox, the Wonkette blogger–who was brought into the suit merely for linking to the allegedly tortious…
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…
By Eric Goldman Let me start with two relatively uncontroversial propositions: 1) UCC Article 2, drafted principally in the 1950s, was designed to govern the sale of tangible items, not software 2) Accordingly, Article 2 fits awkwardly when applied to…
By Eric Goldman The Ninth Circuit has denied an en banc rehearing in Perfect 10 v. CCBill. In doing so, the court amended its opinion to reinforce that it really, really meant that 47 USC 230 preempts all state IP…
By Eric Goldman Internet Spyware (I-SPY) Prevention Act of 2007 (HR 1525) The House passed the I-SPY Act, sending it on to the Senate. This is the House’s third time passing anti-spyware legislation. The past two years, the House passed…
Pew has updated its periodic survey on user attitudes towards spam. Its conclusion: Spam continues to plague the internet as more Americans than ever say they are getting more spam than in the past. But while American internet users report…
By John Ottaviani Requa v. Kent School District No. 415, 2007 WL 1531670 (W.D. Wash. May 24, 2007). “The Court takes judicial notice that “booty” is a common slang term for buttocks.” High school students secretly take video footage of…
By Eric Goldman I got a tip that Zango’s lawsuit against PC Tools had been removed to federal court, which prompted me to search for “Zango” in PACER for the Western District of Washington. I learned that Zango has a…
By Eric Goldman Zango, Inc. v. PC Tools Pty Ltd., 07-2-15844-8SEA (Wash. Superior Ct. complaint filed May 15, 2007) We’ve seen a fair amount of tussling between adware vendors and anti-spyware software vendors, including a battle over the incorporation of’…
By Eric Goldman Facebook, Inc. v. ConnectU LLC, 2007 WL 1514783 (N.D. Cal. May 21, 2007) A universal truth of the digital era: a website displaying user email addresses will be targeted by email harvesters sweeping up those email addresses…