In an important opinion on the enforceability of online contract terms, Senior Circuit Judge Robert D. Sack walks through the last decade and a half of online contracting law on the way to invalidating an arbitration provision in an agreement involving a so-called Web loyalty program. Judge Sack concluded in
This Is One of the Top Ten Best Blog Posts Ever Written about Online Defamation
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
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…
Michigan Court Assesses Electronic Signature Authentication under UETA in Online Insurance Transaction
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
The acceptance of electronic signatures in commercial transactions has become so commonplace that disputes about their use are relatively few. A Michigan appeals court recently considered the validity of an electronic signature where the issue was whether the signature on an online change of beneficiary of a life insurance policy…
State Appeals Court Concludes Employer Not Protected by CDA Section 230 in Employee Stalking Case, and Seems to Shrink the Statute along the Way
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
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…
Videogame App Developer Breaks the Rules on Copyright Infringement
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
Desiree Golden, a recent college graduate, wanted to aim at the big money that can be made in app development. She decided to replicate the popular “Tetris” videogame that has been around since the late 1980s. After researching intellectual property law, she says, she set out to copy only those…
Oracle v. Google Judge Writes the Book on Software Programming Copyright – For Now, Anyway
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
The trial in the dispute between Oracle and Google over the use of Java technology in the Android operating system is over, and the greatly anticipated ruling on copyright in the Java Application Programming Interface (API) has issued. The court ruled that the elements of the Java API, including the…
European Court of Justice Rules on Copyright Status of Computer Programming Languages and Functionality
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
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
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
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?
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
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?
By Jeffrey Neuburger on
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…