Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
|
Barclays Capital Inc. v. TheFlyontheWall.com, Inc.
By Camille Calman and Robert D. Balin
The Internet, because it can transmit information widely, cheaply, and instantly, has created economic conflict between traditional news outlets and other content creators, on one hand, and independent, web-based "news aggregators," on the other. On a daily basis, breaking stories from virtually every major news provider promptly find their way onto a host of aggregator sites—typically with attribution (and links) to the originating news site, but without any authorization or payment for the use. Except where an aggregator has engaged in blatantly infringing word-for-word copying of significant amounts of expression from a news story, the appropriation of facts and information does not generally constitute copyright infringement. News organizations and content creators nonetheless want some measure of protection from online aggregators—whom they may view as free-riding on their work and
siphoning off their rightful profits. By contrast, aggregator sites staunchly maintain that, under settled copyright principles, they have the unfettered right to freely use and widely disseminate mere information and that the courts should not protect business models rendered obsolete by technology.
Read More
|
|
|
First Amendment Defeats Right of Publicity Claims Against Electronic Arts' NCAA Football Video Games
By Elizabeth A. McNamara, Christopher J. Robinson, and Samuel M. Bayard
On Sept. 9, 2011, Judge Freda Wolfson of the United States District Court for the district of New Jersey issued a 67 page opinion that is not only the latest in a series of decisions involving Electronic Arts' (EA) sports video games but is also a significant contribution to the law on the interplay between the First Amendment and the right of publicity. In Hart v. Electronic Arts, Inc., Civil Action 09-cv-5990, Judge Wolfson granted summary judgment for EA on the claims of a putative class of NCAA football players that EA had misappropriated their likeness and identity for a commercial purpose in violation of New Jersey law. The Court found that defendant's First Amendment right to free expression outweighed plaintiff's right of publicity.
Read More
|
|
|
Disaster or Disaster Averted? The Second Circuit Limits the First Sale DoctrineBy Christopher J. Robinson
A recent Second Circuit decision has highlighted the difficult statutory interpretation and policy issues involved in the interplay between the first sale doctrine and restrictions on unauthorized imports into the United States under the Copyright Act. In John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Supap Kirtsaeng,[i] the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that the first sale defense only applies to copyrighted works manufactured in the United States. The case had been closely watched because the implications are potentially far reaching both for copyright holders in the United States and for consumers of copyrighted works. In so holding, the Second Circuit departed from the Ninth Circuit's approach to the problem and all but invited a petition for certiorari or Congressional intervention.
Read More
|
|
|
New Internet Domains Are Coming… What You Should Do
By Robert Corn-Revere, Burt Braverman, and David M. Silverman
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the entity responsible for management of the Internet domain name system (DNS), has approved major changes in the system of top-level domains (TLDs) that will lead to the approval of potentially thousands of new domains. ICANN has also given final approval to a sponsored domain for the adult entertainment industry, .xxx.
Read More
|
|
|
Internet Privacy Class Actions: How to Manage Risks from Increasing Attacks against Online and Social Media
By Jimmy Nguyen
In today's cyberworld, operating in online and social media can put companies in a special class. Unfortunately, that class could mean a class action lawsuit. Web sites and social media provide search engines, web site operators, and advertisers powerful ways to obtain and monetize data about users. This power has triggered public and governmental concern about consumers' online privacy, even leading to a Wall Street Journal investigative report in August 2010. Not surprisingly, all that attention sparked a wave of class action lawsuits.
Read More
|
|
|
Supreme Court Affirms Invalidation of California Restrictions on Violent Video Games
By Robert Corn-Revere and Ronald G. London
The Supreme Court's June 27, 2011, decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) invalidated California's "violent video games" law, which had prohibited sales and rentals to minors and required the games' packaging to bear a large "18" label on the front. Justice Scalia's majority opinion reinforced a number of vital First Amendment principles that bar legislative attempts to create new categories of "unprotected speech," and that establish how relatively little extra leeway the government enjoys even when claiming to regulate in the name of children.
Read More
|
|
|
Supreme Court Invalidates Vermont Law Limiting Data Mining for Pharmaceutical "Detailing"
By Robert Corn-Revere and Ronald G. London
The Supreme Court's June 23, 2011 decision in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. upheld the important First Amendment principle that the government cannot restrict commercial speech on the theory it is too persuasive. Upholding a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the Court voted 6-3 to strike down Vermont's Prescription Confidentiality Law, which had prohibited the use, sale or disclosure of prescriber histories in pharmaceutical marketing to physicians.
Read More
|
|
|
New York Court of Appeals Adopts Broad View of Section 230 Immunity
By James Rosenfeld
In its first decision addressing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the New York Court of Appeals (New York's highest court) has ruled that Section 230 bars tort claims against a website operator based on user-generated content. Shiamili v. The Real Estate Group of New York, Inc. No surprise there—but the court's split (4-3) decision sets out an expansive view of the protection offered by Section 230, immunizing the website operator from liability even though the content in question combined a user's post and the host's own added embellishments.
Read More
|
 | |
DWT Media Group is on Facebook and Twitter
Stay up to date on advisories, blogs, articles of interest, upcoming events, multimedia, commentary from our media lawyers, and more.
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
|
|
|
|
