Court Rejects Lawsuit Over Online Criticisms of a Dater–D’Ambrosio v. Meta
Abbigail Rajala posted a critical review of her dating experience with Nikko D’Ambrosio on the Chicago subboard of Facebook’s Spill the Tea group. According to the district court, D’Ambrosio “sued…
Blogger’s Photo Republication Isn’t Fair Use–Vedros v. Endless Mt. Labradors
This is a run-of-the-mill photographer copyright enforcement action. As a commission for an advertiser, Vedros created a photo that depicts “a dog placing its front paws on a scale with…
TOS Formation Fails, and So Does Section 230–Judge v. Academia
The named plaintiff is a professor. The defendant is a website, Academia, that helps professors share their works publicly. Academia heavily promotes its “Mentions” service that tracks a professor’s mentions…
Meta Defeats Two More Account Termination/Content Removal Lawsuits
…are inseparable from Defendant’s status or conduct as publisher and are barred by section 230(c)(1). [Eric’s note: the court doesn’t address the seemingly obvious problem that a statute can’t override…
SAD Scheme Defendant Gets Damages Payout from the Bond–Bright Head v. Schedule A Defendants
[This is a ruling from a month ago…I just learned about it.] The court starts out: “Plaintiff’s pursuit of a preliminary injunction in this “Schedule A” patent infringement suit fizzled…
Judge Shopping & Schedule A (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Sarah Fackrell, Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law Plaintiffs are often allowed to choose their own forum. But they’re not supposed to be able to…
11th Circuit Rejects TOS Formation–Tejon v. Zeus
Prior blog post. This 11th Circuit decision involves the following screen: In a split opinion, a majority says this TOS formation failed: Zeus chose to bury the page containing that…
SAD Scheme Plaintiff Gets Default Win But Blows the Layup on Damages–Shenzen Huajie v. Shenzen Leyibei
This is a rare Seventh Circuit opinion on the SAD Scheme (it’s nonprecedential). The defense didn’t contest the appeal, but even without opposition, the rightsowner still whiffs. The court contextualizes…
Plaintiffs Are Still Litigating–and Losing–Website Framing Cases (S&S v. Promo Hunt)
The defendant offers a browser extension that displays popup windows over e-commerce sites showing price comparison information. Enterpreneurs have been trying to make this sort of functionality happen since the…
We Still Don’t Know the Second Circuit’s Position on Embedding and Copyright Infringement–Richardson v. Townsquare
This case involves two videos: a video of basketball legend Michael Jordan breaking up a fight, and a video interview with rapper Melle Mel. Videographer Delray Richardson owned the copyrights…