On May 11, 2022, the Fifth Circuit reinstated Texas state law HB 20 which allows private parties to sue tech platforms with 50M+ MAUs for their censorship of user-generated content based on “the viewpoint of a user or another person”. On May 13, technology lobbying groups NetChoice and the Computer...
Next month Stanford CIS is hosting a conference about Legal Futures. Judging by the list of participants, the upcoming even should be nothing less than electrifying. This post is unrelated to the conference. In fact, it is not about legal “futures” at all. Rather, it is about legal “pasts.”
Some CIS...
Zdnet reports on a new initiative in France to tighten copyright protection over the Internet and prevent illegal downloading. The French president himself gave announcements that makes one think he’s on payroll of the music and film industry ("we run the risk of witnessing a genuine destruction of...
Today was the official publication of a new amendment to the German Copyright Act. The amendment will enter into force in January 1st, 2008. After four long years of discussions, debates and negotiations, the final text is now available. A few highlights:
In a press release from today the IFPI hails a Belgium court decision, which reportedly imposes a duty on an Internet Service Provider to use filtering technology for stopping illegal file sharing activities running through its network. From the press release:
A court in Belgium has confirmed that...
After a successful trial MySpace has announced its novel “Take Down Stay Down” campaign. The idea is that upon reception of notice about unauthorized upload of copyrighted material, MySpace will not only remove the allegedly infringing file, but also take digital fingerprint of the accused content...
Last year, Universal Music threatened Javier Prato with legal action for using "I Will Survive" in a humorous video posted on YouTube. It retreated after the Fair Use Project explained Prato's video was protected by Fair Use.
Now, Universal has targeted video blogger Michelle Malkin, who has been...
A lot has been said about Viacom's billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube and Google. In his editorial in last Sunday's New York Times, Larry Lessig pointed out the chaos the Supreme Court has invited through its new-found fondness for the common law of copyright.
One victim of this chaos may be...
It's finally happened. Viacom has sued Google for $1 billion in damages for copyright infringement over videos posted on YouTube. This case will be a great test for exactly how powerful the DMCA Safeharbor protections actually are.
Section 512(c) of the DMCA seems to free GooTube from liability...