It is unlikely that when Stephanie Lenz posted a home video of her children dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” on YouTube, she could have anticipated that, nearly a decade later, she would be seeking U.S. Supreme Court...more
Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) went after Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. for not clearly representing that several digital influencers were paid as part of a marketing campaign for the video game...more
A Chicago law firm has challenged Jay-Z and Kanye West, filing a class action complaint for violations of the California Business & Professions Code, fraudulent inducement and unjust enrichment in the Northern District of...more
We’ve previously written about the distinctions between hacking credit and other financial data in comparison to hacking private information. (See Ashley Madison and Coming to “Terms” with Data Protection.) The issue of how...more
4/25/2016
/ Ashley Madison ,
Attorney-Client Privilege ,
Confidential Information ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Breach ,
Data Privacy ,
Hackers ,
Inadvertent Disclosure ,
Popular ,
Public Disclosure ,
Young Lawyers
In “The Case of Prince, a Dancing Baby and the DMCA Takedown Notice,” we discussed the potential impact of the Ninth Circuit decision in Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 801 F.3d 1126 (2015), a.k.a. the “dancing baby case,” in...more
3/31/2016
/ Algorithms ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Digital Media ,
DMCA ,
Fair Use ,
Good Faith ,
Music Industry ,
Online Videos ,
Popular ,
Takedown Notices ,
Universal ,
YouTube
We recently wrote about a musician who got into some trouble with a court by using social media to flaunt images of hundred dollar bills after he had filed for bankruptcy. Now, an Atlanta-based rapper known as Rolls Royce...more
3/24/2016
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Dilution ,
Lanham Act ,
Music Industry ,
Popular ,
Rolls-Royce ,
Social Media ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks ,
Unfair Competition ,
Young Lawyers
Frequent readers of our blog will recall that in prior posts on companies such as Uber, Ashley Madison and Twitter, we have stressed the importance of having a robust terms of service (TOS) agreement. In many instances, TOS,...more
The future of ride-sharing companies has hung in the balance for more than two years while class actions and labor complaints were pending against industry giants Uber, Lyft and others. The ride-sharing companies have...more
A recently published patent application filed by Twitter provides a possible glimpse into the future of social media and selfies—and it’s a future arriving on the wings of that poster child of modern technology, the unmanned...more
1/28/2016
/ Corporate Counsel ,
DMCA ,
Drones ,
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ,
Popular ,
Registration Requirement ,
Safe Harbors ,
Selfies ,
Social Media ,
Twitter ,
Unmanned Aircraft Systems ,
Young Lawyers
Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. When it comes to acting on copyright infringement takedown notices, just how fast is fast enough for social media platforms? Some recent (and not-so-recent) cases reveal how difficult the question...more
In a recent federal district court case in the Northern District of California (Case No. 13-cv-04608-HSG), Pintrips Inc., a website-based travel planning service, effectively pinned to the mat the trademark claims brought...more
As user-generated content explodes over the Internet, intellectual property disputes over posting or uploading such content without the owner’s consent continue to escalate. As we touched on in a recent post, social media...more
11/5/2015
/ Copyright Infringement ,
Corporate Counsel ,
DMCA ,
Independent Contractors ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Internet ,
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ,
News Stories ,
Online Platforms ,
Online Videos ,
Photographs ,
Popular ,
Safe Harbors ,
Social Media ,
Social Networks ,
Spam ,
Third-Party ,
Third-Party Liability ,
User-Generated Content ,
Websites ,
Young Lawyers
Continuing the trend in recent years of injunctions becoming harder and harder to obtain, the Northern District of California denied a motion for a preliminary injunction where the defendant has allegedly copied the...more
A party’s right to privacy has always been an important and sometimes limiting factor in the resolution of discovery disputes. Social media platforms, which allow users to select the extent with whom they share their network,...more
9/15/2015
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Discovery Rule ,
Facebook ,
Motion to Compel ,
Online Platforms ,
Popular ,
Privacy Settings ,
Right to Privacy ,
Social Media ,
Social Networks ,
Young Lawyers