Departing Employees Rename Their Former Employers' Facebook Account. That May Be a Problem--La Baguette v. Tito & Tita

This is an employer/ex-employee dispute over a Facebook page. As alleged in the complaint, plaintiffs operated a bakery known as “La Baguette,” and hired defendants to manage aspects of the business. Defendants also managed the social media presence of the…

Justice Thomas Really, REALLY Wants Section 230 Repealed (Even If He Has to Do It Himself)

The Supreme Court denied certiorari in Doe v. Facebook, a FOSTA case. The Texas Supreme Court held that FOSTA excluded some claims from Section 230 (disregarding the statutory language Congress adopted), while other claims remain preempted by Section 230. The…

26 Trademark Academics Oppose the SHOP SAFE Act

[Today, Betsy Rosenblatt, Rebecca Tushnet and I sent the following letter to Congress on behalf of 26 trademark academics (here’s a PDF version). This complements a separate letter sent by 38 organizations and companies also opposing the SHOP SAFE Act….

By Guest Blogger Tyler Ochoa On February 24, the U.S. Supreme Court held 6-3 that the Ninth Circuit erred in invalidating a copyright registration for failure to comply with the Copyright Office’s “single unit of publication” regulation, where the copyright…

Another 512(f) Claim Fails--Moonbug v. Babybus

Moonbug runs the CoComelon channel, the top-ranked Kids YouTube channel. Babybus runs a competitive channel that Moonbug believes infringes its copyrights. An example: Moonbug submitted takedown notices to YouTube covering at least 70 videos and sued Babybus for copyright infringement….

Section 230 Doesn't Apply to Publication of Private Emails--Crowley v. Faison

Faison runs the Sacramento chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLM). She received several racist and offensive emails from an email address purporting to be Karra Crowley. Faison posted the emails to BLM’s Facebook page and identified Karra as the sender….

By guest blogger Lisa Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law Federal Circuit holds refusal to register a political message for T-shirts violates the First Amendment, but fails to acknowledge that these types of registrations can…

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. Bell has filed at least 25 copyright lawsuits. This one has…

Copyright Office Rejects Registration for AI-Created Works

Thaler filed an application to register the copyright in this work, entitled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise”: Thaler explained the work “was autonomously created by a computer algorithm running on a machine” and he was “seeking to register this computer-generated…

Section 230 Immunizes TikTok for User-Posted Videos--Day v. TikTok

Day discovered videos on TikTok of her 2-year-old daughter being abused. That’s horrifying, but the opinion doesn’t address the many obvious followup questions, such as: where was the daughter during the abuse? who was abusing the daughter? was that person…