Appeals Court Accepts That the “Water” Emoji Can Be Slang for Methamphetamine–U.S. v. Reed
This is a federal prosecution against alleged drug dealers. There is substantial evidence beyond the emojis suggesting that Swanagan is a dealer. Prior blog post. The appeals court didn’t quote…
District Court Again Rejects Plaintiffs’ Attempts to Manufacture Common Law Notice-and-Takedown Duties–Bogard v. TikTok
This is a quirky lawsuit designed to subvert Section 230, the First Amendment, and traditional common law. I previously summarized the case: This lawsuit purports to focuses on the allegedly…
Courts Enjoin Internet Censorship Laws in Louisana and Arkansas
…Version of My Paper Against Mandatory Online Age Authentication Prof. Goldman’s Statement on the Supreme Court’s Demolition of the Internet in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton Court Permanently Enjoins Ohio’s…
OnlyFans Defeats “Chatter Scam” Claim–N.Z. v. Fenix
The court summarizes the plaintiffs’ “chatter scam” contentions: Plaintiffs allege that Fenix Defendants, in cooperation with the Agency Defendants, operate a fraudulent scheme whereby Fenix Defendants charge OnlyFans subscribers to…
Post-Mortem of a Misguided Logo Trademark Lawsuit–LegalForce v. Internet Brands
The plaintiff in this case is LegalForce, Raj Abhyanker CEO, which run the notorious trademark registration operation Trademarkia. How notorious? Trademarkia’s own web site has a page entitled “Is Trademarkia…
Second Circuit Rejects Email Service on Chinese Defendants in Baby Shark SAD Scheme Case
This case involves the “Baby Shark” earworm song, which has billions of YouTube views and ranks as the #1 most viewed YouTube video of all time. You already know the…
Is Blogging a “Recreational Activity”?–Sander v. Westchester Reform Temple
In 2021, Jessie Sander was hired as a Jewish educator at the Westchester Reform Temple, located in Scarsdale, NY. Sander calls the temple a “Zionist institution.” The temple’s website still…
Are Robots.txt Instructions Legally Binding?–Ziff Davis v. OpenAI
Robots.txt files express a website’s preferences for robot access. Despite their venerability, there are not many cases discussing the legal implications of robots.txt files and robot exclusion headers.[FN] As a…
COVID Jawboning Lawsuit Dismissed (For Now)–Dressen v. Flaherty
Generated by ChatGPT Dec. 2025 This is a COVID-related jawboning case: Plaintiffs allege that Defendants violated their constitutional rights by pressuring social media companies to ban or limit their social…
Court Authorizes Unmasking Subpoena in Copyright Case–In re DMCA Subpoena to GoDaddy
The copyright owner Tamaris claims that 100+ websites, including “casinoestelar.com” and “powerbet.win,” infringe their copyrights. The copyright owner obtained a 512(h) unmasking subpoena and served it on GoDaddy. GoDaddy notified…