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This case asks whether in-line linking or framing of an image can violate the public display right under US copyright law. Diverging from long-standing precedent known as the “server test” under Perfect 10 v. Amazon and other cases outside its Circuit, the District Court here held that framing is an actionable public display. The lower court ruling caused considerable consternation among academics and civil society. Assuming the case is appealed, it will presumably draw amicus briefs and more commentary.

This is one of several cases seeking to hold Internet platforms civilly liable under US statutes barring material support of terrorism. The first instance court rejected plaintiff’s claim on several grounds, including Twitter’s intermediary immunity under Communications Decency Act Section 230 (CDA 230). On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal rejected plaintiff’s claims without reaching the CDA 230 issues. It based its analysis on the causation requirement of the civil material support statute. Material support claims raise a few questions under CDA 230 -- none entirely novel, but all important. One is whether the existence of a federal criminal statute on material support means that plaintiffs’ federal civil claims -- which would otherwise be barred by CDA 230 -- somehow fit in under the statute’s exemption for...

This case began when US digital civil liberties organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) featured defendant Global Equity in its "Stupid Patent of the Month" blog series. EFF said Global Equity “seems to be a classic patent troll,” and called for patent law reform. Global Equity demanded that EFF retract the post, then sued for defamation in its home forum, South Australia. EFF did not appear, and the Australian court issued an injunction ordering EFF to remove the post and cease publishing on the topic of Global Equity's intellectual property. EFF did not remove the article, saying that it consisted of “substantially true facts, protected opinion, and rhetorical hyperbole,” but said that it felt chilled from publishing further on the topic. EFF sought declaratory relief, in the form of an order declaring the...

In the Canadian Equustek ruling in June 2017, Canada's Supreme Court ordered Google to de-list search results for users everywhere in the world, based on Canadian trade secret law. However, it left open the possibility that this outcome could change on remand to lower Canadian courts if Google established that the order conflicted with law in other countries. This November 2017 ruling, from a US first instance court, establishes that this conflict exists in the US. In its filing, Google requested "declaratory judgment that the Canadian court’s order cannot be enforced in the United States and an order enjoining that enforcement.” Here, the court grants preliminary injunctive relief. Google raised three arguments: that the Canadian order "directly conflicts with the First Amendment, disregards the Communication Decency...

This copyright case plays out against a complex factual backdrop addressed at trial and pleadings in the court below. The evidence included internal emails in which employees of Cox, a major ISP, express disrespect for, and arguably skirt compliance with, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA requires that intermediaries implement policies for termination of repeat copyright infringers. In Cox’s implementation, users accused of infringement via DMCA notices were not suspended until after a tenth notice, and could be considered for reinstatement after later notices. The Court held that this policy was insufficient, and rejected an argument that users could be deemed repeat infringers only after judicial adjudication of infringement. By failing in this DMCA requirement, Cox forfeited the defense for its...

This detailed and somewhat confused opinion concerns LiveJournal, a blog hosting site. LiveJournal’s most successful hosted content, by a wide margin, is a celebrity gossip blog called Oh No They Didn’t. The platform stepped beyond its usual role in relation to this blog: it hired and paid a content moderator, who in turn managed teams of volunteer moderators. The teams rejected material on grounds of pornography, harassment, irrelevance (for gossip that is too old), and more - in sum, rejecting some 2/3 of uploads. They also enforced a list of sources that were not to be used on copyright grounds. The Court considers the platform’s defenses to copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and concludes that the common law of agency applies. The Court holds that a jury must decide the...