Florida Hits a New Censorial Low in Internet Regulation (Comments on SB 7072)

This blog post reviews Florida’s Transparency in Technology Act, SB 7072. Like other recent efforts to censor the Internet (such as Trump’s anti-230 EO), this law is performative garbage. It was never a serious attempt at crafting good policy. Florida…

by guest blogger Tyler Ochoa On May 29, 2021, New York’s new post-mortem right of publicity law came into effect.  The law is codified at N.Y. Civil Rights Law § 50-f.  It provides for a post-mortem right of publicity for a…

by guest blogger Tyler Ochoa On May 29, 2021, New York’s new post-mortem right of publicity law came into effect.  The law is codified at N.Y. Civil Rights Law § 50-f.  It provides for a post-mortem right of publicity for a…

YouTuber Doesn't Qualify as a Member of the "News Media"--Green v. Pierce County

Green runs a YouTube channel called “Libertys Champion” (with 18k subscribers now). Green had a scuffle with a Pierce County security guard, so he submitted public records requests to obtain more information about the county’s security force. The county provided…

What Are 'Red Flags of Infringement'? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -- Capitol v. Vimeo

Do you remember this case? It was filed in 2009, back when MySpace was still bigger than Facebook. The copyright owners never sent Vimeo any takedown notices over the videos in question, but they still sued Vimeo for hosting them….

Section 230 Preempts Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) Claims--Henderson v. Source for Public Data

Section 230 and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) have always had an implicit conflict. The FCRA is an old-school regulation of electronic databases run by credit reporting agencies, who gather and republish third-party data. As a result, any FCRA…

I’ve heard many tragic stories from content reviewers about the personal challenges associated with their jobs, both during and after employment. As heartbreaking as those stories are, it’s never been clear to me what legal remedies might apply to those…

What Would Happen If Search Engines Had to Give Higher Visibility to Less Relevant Results?

I’m reporting on a study by Bin Han, Chirag Shah, and Daniel Saelid called “Users’ Perception of Search Engine Biases and Satisfaction.” The authors showed two pages of Bing results to study participants. (An aside: Bing…really?) The first page was…

Maffick runs several Facebook pages. Due to Maffick’s possible ties to the Russian government, Facebook labeled the pages “Russia state-controlled media.” Maffick sued Facebook. In Sept. 2020, the court denied Maffick’s TRO request. Now, the court has dismissed the Lanham…

Eighth Circuit Embraces the Initial Interest Confusion Doctrine. What??? UGH. No. Why???--Select Comfort v. Baxter

The initial interest confusion doctrine has always been a misguided doctrine that is too easy for plaintiffs to weaponize. Fortunately, the doctrine has been dying for over a decade. Few opinions mention it nowadays, and even fewer cite it in…