How can a website operator lose the broad immunity for liability associated with user-generated content conferred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA)?
Section 230 has been consistently interpreted by most courts to protect website operators against claims arising out of third-party content, despite some less than honorable…
It is a common practice for Web site providers who accept submissions of user-generated content to include a license provision in their “Terms of Use” to obtain rights to use the content. Rather than relying on the uncertain scope of an implied license, the provider can clarify, and hopefully…
UPDATE: On appeal, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s grant of TripAdvisor’s motion to dismiss, ruling that the plaintiff could not prove falsity on its defamation claim because the placement of hotels on TripAdvisor’s list constituted protected opinion. The opinion is discussed in a follow-up post.
Although we…
An Illinois state appeals court recently held that although an employer that provided network connectivity to its employees is an “interactive service provider” under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the statute does not protect the employer from negligent supervision claims based upon the employee’s alleged use of the…
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…
A divided New York Court of Appeals ruled on June 14, 2011, that an online forum administrator’s additions to an allegedly defamatory post by a user are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Shiamili v. The Real Estate Group of New York, Inc., No. 105, (N.Y.
Electronic technologies have greatly reduced the costs of distributing information, but for content owners, that’s been a mixed blessing. Just as their costs of content distribution have shrunk and their ease of distribution has increased, the same is true for parties who obtain and redistribute that content unlawfully, to the competitive disadvantage of the content owners. That equation has been repeated over and over, reflected in numerous litigation battles fought over the last several decades. One of those battles has been fought by major financial firms that have sought to regain control over the dissemination of the stock analysts’ research reports that are central to their business model.
A hard-fought battle between two sandwich franchises has yielded an opinion dealing with the application of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to videos submitted as part of an online contest. The result is an unusual ruling that sends to a jury the issue of whether the advertiser that…
Apple probably could not have satisfied all the wild and hopeful imaginings of everyone who weighed in on what its new iPad device would look like, and what its functionality would be. Whether or not the iPad will be the content distribution game-changer that so many are looking for is another matter, but it’s still a pretty interesting device. In any case, however, the iPad does at least raise certain legal issues to consider.
As smart as lawyers have become in trying to address new technologies in agreements, there is always the question of whether a particular device or distribution method falls within the scope of the agreement. In some cases, the party drafting the agreement is lucky enough to have their counterparty agree to unlimited, unrestricted descriptions of technology (e.g., in all media, technology and distribution methods, now known or hereafter to become known, anywhere in the Universe). However, all the parties to technology oriented transactions are aware of the importance of this issue, and the counterparty in more cases than not will push back to limit the scope to the “intended” technology.
Which leads us to the question: Where will the iPad fall within the scope of these types of agreements?
We have previously described as "robust," the protection afforded interactive service providers from liability for defamatory contents posted by third parties by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. But in Blockowitz v. Williams, 1:09-cv-03955 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 21, 2009), involving post-judgment efforts to have defamatory postings removed from a consumer complaint Web site , the protection comes, not from CDA Section 230, but from Fed. R. Civ. P. 65, which governs the enforcement of injunctions.
Perhaps predictably, for followers of CDA Section 230 jurisprudence, the consumer complaint Web site involved is the Ripoff Report, operated by perennial defendant Xcentric Ventures, Inc.
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