A federal court will permit Baidu, Inc., a leading Chinese search engine company, to sue Register.com for gross negligence, recklessness, and breach of contract.
The lawsuit arose after a hacker took over Baidu’s Register.com account and interrupted its service for two days in January 2010. Among other things, the hacker redirected Baidu’s users to the Web site of the Iranian Cyber Army. Baidu claimed the hacker wrested control of Baidu’s account as a result of errors made by Register.com’s tech support Internet “chat” staff. According to the complaint: ”Although the Intruder gave the Rep an incorrect response to [a] security question, the Rep nonetheless proceeded with processing the Intruder’s request to change Baidu’s email address; [and] [w]hen the Intruder sent the Rep a bogus security code, the Rep did not notice that it was the wrong code, apparently because the Rep didn’t even bother to check it against the original security code.” The Intruder then allegedly changed the password and hacked into Baidu’s account. Baidu claimed injury to its reputation and business totaling “millions” of dollars. Read more »
We reviewed Judge Stanton’s comprehensive decision in this closely watched case. If upheld on appeal, it’s a victory not only for YouTube and Google, but for all Internet service providers (ISPs).
If you haven’t followed the case, Viacom had sued Google and YouTube for intentional and contributory copyright infringement, alleging “tens of thousands of videos on YouTube … were taken unlawfully from Viacom’s copyrighted works without authorization.” In defense, Google and YouTube asserted DMCA section 512. This so-called ”safe harbor” limits ISP liability for copyright infringement in certain situations. Whether defendants in copyright cases enjoy the limitation of liability is based on, among other things, their knowledge of — and response to – infringing activity on their service of which they become aware. Read more »
Tags: Copyright Infringement, Digital Millen. Copyright Act, Google, safe harbor, Viacom, YouTube
Copyright Act, Court Cases, Google, Viacom, YouTube | editor | 
June 25, 2010 2:21 pm | 
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Social media and other electronic messages continue to find their way into court. Three recent cases — from Minnesota, Indiana, and California — illustrate the trend.
LinkedIn Posts Lead to Lawsuit. In a case making news in the employment law world, a recruiting firm has sued a former recruiter for sending LinkedIn messages to its clients in violation of the employee’s non-compete agreements.
TEKsystems is a technology staffing and services company. In an effort to protect its client and prospect lists, client service agreements, billing rates, client preferences, and other confidential information, TEKsystems required its employees to sign three “restrictive covenants” — an agreement not to compete, an agreement not to solicit clients, and an agreement not to disclose confidential information. Read more »
A New York court has dismissed a criminal complaint brought against an employer who secretly accessed an employee’s personal email account. In People v. Klapper, an employee reported that his employer, a doctor, surreptitiously installed keystroke tracking software on his computer; obtained the password for the employee’s personal email account; and then accessed and printed out documents from that account. The prosecutor’s office charged the employer with Unauthorized Use of a Computer, a misdemeanor under section 156.05 of the New York Penal Law. Read more »
A recent ruling by a U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut suggests that a Web site operator may not be entitled to immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (”CDA”) when hosting certain user generated content. It’s an important decision for any advertiser that solicits creative work from its customers.
This dispute centered on an advertising campaign created by Quiznos to highlight the differences between its sandwiches and Subway sandwiches. After launching a television ad campaign, Quiznos partnered with iFilm on an Internet contest called the “Quiznos v. Subway TV Ad Challenge.” Quiznos asked entrants to create videos showing “why you think Quiznos is better.” Quiznos and iFilm posted sample videos on the contest site, as well as contestant videos.
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A California federal court has handed Google a legal victory in a battle over its successful AdWords platform.
The plaintiff in Jurin v. Google Inc. sells building materials to contractors and homeowners. Plaintiff sells the materials under its ”StyroTrim” trademark. The plaintiff was upset to learn that Google’s AdWords program had “suggested” StyroTrim as a keyword. Competitors allegedly bid on the term and then appeared in the “sponsored links” accompanying searches for StyroTrim — sometimes in a higher “position” than Jurin’s company. Plaintiff alleged Google’s AdWords infringed the StyroTrim trademark and constituted false advertising under the Lanham Act. Plaintiff also alleged the AdWords “sponsored links” constituted a “false designation of [the] origin [of Styrotrim materials]” under that act. Finally, plaintiff claimed Google had negligently and intentionally interfered with plaintiff’s contractual relations with its customers. Google moved to dismiss these claims. Read more »
Tags: AdWords, Communications Decency Act, Google, Lanham Act, Styrotrim, Trademark
Advertising, Communications Decency Act, Court Cases, Google, Lanham Act (Trademark) | editor | March 11, 2010 12:59 pm | Comments (0)
A California appeals court has weighed in on the sticky question of when the forwarder of a potentially defamatory email loses Communications Decency Act (”CDA”) section 230 immunity.
In Hung Tan Phan v. Lang Van Pham, the President of a group of Vietnamese Navy and Merchant Marine veterans sent an email to fellow veterans. In the email, he wrote that another veteran, Hung Tan Phan, had been disciplined by the Vietnamese Navy for abusive behavior in the final days of the Vietnam War.
Lang Van Pham received the email and forwarded it to at least one fellow veteran. He included the following introductory paragraph: “Dear Kmap: Everything will come out to the daylight, I invite you and our classmates to read the following comments of [the] … President of the Federation of Associations of the Republic of Vietnam Navy and Merchant Marine.” Read more »
If you’re a litigator or a client in the middle of discovery — particularly in a federal case in the Southern District of New York – you’ll want to read Judge Shira Scheindlin’s recent decision in Pension Comm. of the Univ. of Montreal Pension Plan v. Banc of Am. Secs., 2010 WL 184312 (S.D.N.Y., Jan 15, 2010). The 34-page opinion provides a roadmap for what firms and clients are expected to do to preserve, collect, review and produce electronic documents. More, the decision makes clear that even ”innocent” errors can be deemed negligence or gross negligence — rendering a party liable for monetary or other sanctions. The story begins in 2004, when 96 investors filed a complaint to recover $550 million in losses arising from the dissolution of two hedge funds. Read more »
In addition to the other problems music publishers have faced in the past few years, we can now add the possibility of civil liability for violations of US and state antitrust laws. That was the holding in a recent Second Circuit case reinstating a lawsuit that had been dismissed in 2008.
In Starr v. Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a group of online music buyers sued the largest music publishers and distributors for an alleged conspiracy to “restrain the availability and distribution of Internet Music, fix and maintain at artificially high and non-competitive levels the prices at which they sold Internet Music, and impose unreasonably restrictive terms in the purchase and use of Internet Music.” Read more »
A recent federal court case in Illinois demonstrates just how hard it is for people who are defamed online to remove offending posts.
When two individuals posted on four Web sites a variety of unflattering statements about David, Mary, and Lisa Blockowicz, the Blockowicz’s sued the posters for a preliminary injunction on the ground they had been defamed. When the defendants defaulted, the court entered a permanent injunction requiring the defendants to remove the defamatory postings from the four Web sites. Three of the Web sites removed the posts. One Web site (www.ripoffreport.com) did not. One of the offending posts — which remains online – is here. Read more »
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