In a jury room in San Francisco, jurors in Oracle, Inc. v. Google, Inc. have been toiling over complicated issues related to the copyrightability of the Java computer programming language, and they may well return a verdict before the ink is dry on this post. We’ll write more about that
Ninth Circuit Ruling Trimming CFAA Claims for Misappropriation Reminds Employers that Technical Network Security is the First Defense
The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, has upheld a district court’s dismissal of criminal charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that were predicated on misappropriation of proprietary documents in violation of the employer’s computer use policy. United States v. Nosal, No. 10-10038, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS
Will the Pinterest “Nopin” Tag Put Online Image Owners on the Defensive on Implied Copyright Licenses? Should We Look to Robots.txt as Precedent?
Pinterest is the hot hot hot social media site that lets users create online “pinboards” of interesting or inspiring images. Although users may upload their own images to their pinboards, Pinterest emphasizes the pinning of images from third-party Web sites through the use of inline links.
This of course generates
U. S. Supreme Court Unanimously Rule that GPS Installation and Tracking of a Vehicle Constitutes a Search, But The Justices Disagree on Rationale – Are Lines Being Drawn on Privacy Rights and New Technology?
In a narrowly-drawn majority opinion, the United States Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Antoine Jones that the Government’s attachment of a GPS-tracking device to a vehicle, and the subsequent monitoring of the movements of that vehicle on public streets, constitutes a search. Because the Government conceded in the
There’s No Sense Waiting to See What the U.S. Supreme Court Has to Say about GPS Tracking
That appears to be the opinion of Magistrate Judge David Noce in United States v. Robinson, No. 4:11-cr-00361 (D. Mo. Dec. 27, 2011), who ruled that GPS tracking of a public official suspected of having a no-show municipal job did not require a warrant. This is, of course, the
An Old Wine – New Bottles Analogy Leads to Dismissal of Indictment for Alleged Twitter Stalking
The Twitter micro-blogging service is just like the bulletin boards that Colonial Americans might have had in their front yards to communicate with one another at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, said a federal district court judge in United States v. Cassidy, No. TWT 11-091 (D.
Who Owns an Employee’s Twitter and Other Online Accounts?
In this era of multiple online communication channels, and in an environment of increased employee mobility, employers need to focus on the legal and practical ways of securing their ownership of online company accounts that are registered or otherwise created by employees or contractors. In the three cases discussed below,
Service Provider’s Intent in Removing Positive Reviews Irrelevant in Assessing Availability of CDA Section 230 Protection
A lawsuit against consumer review site Yelp! has yielded an opinion that demonstrates the breadth of the protection afforded interactive service providers under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. In Levitt v. Yelp! Inc., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124082 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 26, 2011), a group of putative
Ninth Circuit Will Rehear Important Employee Data Theft Case under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
On October 27, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed to rehear the appeal in United States v. Nosal, 642 F.3d 781 (9th Cir. Apr. 28, 2011). Nosal involves a prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for alleged employee theft of confidential
Novell Prevails in Long-Running Dispute over Ownership of UNIX Copyrights – And Open Source Software Moves On
The dispute between The SCO Group and Novell, Inc. over the ownership of copyrights in the code to certain versions of the UNIX operating system, which started eight years ago, appears to have been handed its retirement papers by the Tenth Circuit. Yesterday, on the case’s second visit to the